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Posted on: 2019-01-11

Hoaxes

Time for another very short post. This time it's about hoaxes. I believe I had a version of this post before. I hope this is at least as informative.

"The latest viral hoax sweeping across Facebook claims the site will limit the content you can see in your News Feed to 26 friends" a Facebook post reports.

I remember reading the hoax itself. I would have included at least part of it here, but I couldn't find it again when I crafted this post. I do remember finding two telltale signs. The condition it claimed was false and the action the post suggested made no difference to what the user sees.

This reminds me of the ridiculous extortion attempt I referred to in this post.

When you receive a message that causes you to panic, the first thing you need to do is take a deep breath. After you've calmed down, you should check if you're having the situation described, and if so, if there is a legitimate reason for it. Another thing you should do is look the claim up on the Snopes website. If it's there, then it's a hoax.

One thing I personally recommend that you do is to attempt to trace the message back to its source. Whenever you contact someone about the message you received, I would suggest that you send them a link to this post. What you do if you're lucky enough to reach the source is entirely up to you. However, I would suggest that you avoid alienating them.

As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, then please let me know in the form down below.


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