“Signed at 12.20” Facebook is charging warning debunked
A warning is spreading across Facebook that claims Facebook are going to introduce a charge “this summer” – however, according to the warning, those who copy and paste the same warning to their timelines will not have to pay a charge since their “icon will turn blue”.
The ambiguous and poorly worded warning (below) is utterly nonsensical, and it is actually a years-old rehash of very similar rumours that have plagued sites like Facebook for years.
It’s official. Signed at 12:20. It even passed on TV. Facebook will start charging this summer. If you copy this to your wall your icon will turn blue and your Facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message, if not your icon will be deleted.
P.S. this is serious, the icon will turn blue.
(Copy and paste this to your wall)
A later near-identical version reads…
It’s official Signed at 10:33. It’s even passed on TV. Facebook will start charging this summer. If you copy this to your wall your icon will turn blue and your Facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message, if not your icon will be deleted.
– P.S. this is serious, the icon will turn blue
(Copy and paste to your wall)
The claim that a particular website is going to begin charging for its service unless you copy or forward some arbitrary text to your online contacts dates back to the 1990s, back to the days of MSN/AOL messengers. In fact a very similar message that vaguely talks about an icon turning blue targeted MSN messenger in the early 2000s, and similar rehashed versions have been created for other online services including WhatsApp. This Facebook version has been spreading on and off since at least 2011.
These silly messages contain absolutely no truth whatsoever. Facebook are not introducing a charge to use their services since their primary business model relies heavily on exposing their large member base to third party advertising. Providing their services for free for those who copy and paste a random warning makes little sense whatsoever, yet despite the popularity and illogical nature of these warnings, they still manage to persistently garner viral success.
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Other rumours that claim Facebook are charging their users have spread from time to time, and still remain false.
Facebook’s social networking services are free, and they always will be. It even says so on their homepage. We discussed why Facebook will never introduce a charge here.
It is certainly about time we put these silly rumours to rest for good. While many social networking users undoubtedly spread them “just in case” they’re true, passing on this type of misinformation across the Internet is actually counter-productive and devalues the ability social networking websites have in terms of being able to share useful, productive content.
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