better part of your life living
out of Facebook, rejoice.
Facebook won ’t be closing
on March 15 after all.
Surprised? Read on ...
More than one million
people have already fallen
for a hoax that claims that
the popular social
networking site will be
shutting down on March 15.
According to IT security firm
Sophos, a bogus news story
published by the “Weekly
World News”, said Facebook
founder Mark Zuckerberg
had told reporters that
“ managing [Facebook] has
ruined my life. I need to put
an end to all the madness. ”
Some panic-stricken
Facebook users and mischief-
mongers spread the story far
and wide across the internet
in no time. Although
Facebook debunked the hoax
via its Twitter account late on
Sunday, users still continue
to pass the bogus messages
onto their online friends.
The “Weekly World News”
article went on to quote
another company official,
Avrat Humarthi, vice-
president of technical affairs
at Facebook, as saying “After
March 15th the whole
website shuts down. So if you
ever want to see your
pictures again, I recommend
you take them off the
internet. You won ’t be able
to get them back once
Facebook goes out of
business. ”
Sophos said that many
people would not believe the
report, which comes from a
newspaper that has
previously reported George
Clooney is running for
president and that alien
spacecrafts will visit earth in
2011. However, it only takes
only a small number of
people to think it might be
possible to turn a joke of a
news story into an internet
hoax as has been proved
many a times in the past few
years.
“I certainly wouldn’t disagree
that users would be wise to
have their own backup of
their photographs, rather
than rely on Facebook -- but
it ’s nothing more than a
scare to suggest to people
that they have to do it before
March15th because
Facebook is going to close
down, ” explained Graham
Cluley, senior technology
consultant at Sophos.
“There’s an important lesson
here -- don’t believe
everything you read on the
internet, and think twice
before you pass a story on to
your friends. ”
Although a hoax is not as
serious as malware worming
its way between users and
stealing information, it ’s still
a nuisance, clogging up
communications, increasing
the overall level of spam and
perhaps leading people to
make decisions for the wrong
reasons. – (Times of India)
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