“Facebook Will Become Chargeable” Hoax Message

Outline:
Widely circulated Facebook post claims that from Saturday morning Facebook will become chargeable. It claims that your Facebook account will stay free if you prove that you are an avid user by sending the same message to at least 10 contacts. Supposedly, after you have shared as instructed, your Facebook logo will turn blue to denote your free account status.

Analysis:
The message is just a silly hoax. Facebook has not announced any plans to start charging users for access. The message is just one more version of a long series of earlier hoaxes that have falsely claimed that Facebook was about to start charging users unless they shared a post.



Pranksters keep reusing this ruse because it is apparently an effective way of tricking people into posting nonsense on their networks. If Facebook did decide to start charging users an access fee, it certainly would not announce the change via a vague and garbled Facebook share. Nor, of course, would it suggest that users could avoid the impending fees by sending on the same message to a specified number of friends.

Any message that makes such claims is sure to be a hoax and should not be shared.
And, keep in mind that Facebook states emphatically on its login page that Facebook is “free and always will be”. Moreover, the Facebook logo is already blue and always has been.