Watch out for “nobody wished me Happy Birthday” social media posts
Readers should be wary of social media posts designed to lure shares or “likes” by using photos of sick or disabled people along with a caption that reads “no one wished me a happy birthday”, since these posts are designed to exploit social media users.
Often referred to as like-farming, social media spammers will stop at nothing to attract followers to their social media pages, even if it means emotional blackmail.
Accumulating followers through like-farming is achieved by posting content that is designed to exploit or deceive social media users into interacting with that content, helping it spread virally.
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While a number of different types of like-farming exist, such as fake competitions, “type amen” etc. we have seen a surge of Facebook and Twitter posts showing photos of disabled or sick people along with the caption that it is their birthday and that nobody wished them a happy birthday. Such posts are clearly designed to lure social media users into commenting and sharing the posts.
Take a look at two popular examples below –
Hi I’m Jessica. Suffering from blood cancer. Today is My Birthday. But no one wished me yet. I am smiling. But sad in my heart. Can I get some best wishes? #BirthdayGirl
This first one spread across Twitter and was even retweeted by a number of celebrity accounts. We have blurred out the person’s identity.
His school friend told him that no one would say happy birthday to him because of his desease
He is 11 years today
Please do not scroll without typing “Happy Birthday.”
To be absolutely clear, it is not the people in these photos making such posts, nor anyone related to them (hence we’ve blurred their identities.) Nor indeed are these photos posted by anyone who cares about the people in the photos. In reality, the photos have been stolen from the Internet, and posted by spammers looking to entice social media users into engaging with their posts.
As such, exploitative assertions that “no one wished him/me a happy birthday” are simply lies to attract engagement. Engaging with such posts help them spread across social media, and helps the pages attract more followers.
While it can be tempting, and certainly well-meaning, to engage with such posts, please don’t. They are being posted by heartless spammers with no good intentions. The only result spammers are interested in is high post engagement and obtaining followers, and they’ve proven time and time again that they are more than willing to exploit anyone to achieve such goals.
Read more on like-farming here.
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