collected Sept 2011

The latest "Facebook is charging" hoax comes in this incarnation that purports that Facebook are introducing 3 levels of membership of which all will be chargeable on a monthly basis – unless you copy and paste the above message before midnight, in which case you account will remain free.

As we have noted several times before in the last few years, all messages and rumours asserting that Facebook will charge for their service are utterly false and illogical. Facebook are not going to introduce a charge as this is not how their revenue model works. This completely unoriginal hoax has been circulating Facebook for years in many different variations, and before that this type of hoax has also plagued other free services like Yahoo and Hotmail as early as the mid-90s.

Of course the above message omits an actual date, instead vaguely quoting "midnight" as the time limit, meaning the hoax can continue for an indefinite period of time whilst still appearing valid and not outdated.

Additionally, the assertion that copying a message to your status update will somehow save your account or keep it free makes absolutely no sense at all. Why would Facebook keep certain accounts free based on copying and pasting a pointless message?

You can read our complete write-up on these hoaxes here, or you can read our blog post The Curious Case of the Fantasy Facebook Fee.



The Internet, and social networking sites like Facebook, are perfect platforms for spreading untruths, misinformation, rumor and propaganda. Thousands of inaccurate, exaggerated, deceptive or just plain false messages are circulated every single day.

For the anti-scam community to successfully tackle this plethora of false rumours, it is important that anyone who uses the Internet be able to identify false rumours and fully understands the possible consequences of spreading false information.

We have a two part blog post that helps provide this information. Part 1 deals with how to spot and debunk Internet rumours and Part 2 deals with the reasons why you should never circulate false information.

Additionally if you have fallen for this rumour or have Facebook friends that have, you can join our growing Facebook page here.