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No, Mark Zuckerberg Won’t Give You Millions of Dollars for Changing Your Facebook Status

2 minute read

Earlier this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan announced that they would donate 99% of their Facebook shares to charity.

Since the Zuckerbergs announced this initiative, a chain letter has been circulating Facebook suggesting that the CEO will randomly gift millions of dollars to a select few Facebook users sharing the post. This is a hoax, however. There’s no truth to it. The post, which Facebook officially debunked on Dec. 9, promises the following:

“Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he is giving away $45 billon of Facebook stock. What you may not have heard is that he plans to give 10% of it away to people like YOU and ME! All you have to do is copy and paste this message into a post IMMEDIATELY. At midnight PST, Facebook will search through the day’s post and award 1000 people with $4.5 million Each as a way of saying thank you for making Facebook such a powerful vehicle for connection.”

Facebook responded to the hoax to confirm that Zuckerberg has no such plan. “Friends don’t let friends copy and paste memes,” the official Facebook account posted. “While Priscilla and Mark’s pledge to give money to improve the world is real, not everything you read on the internet is, and they’re not giving it away randomly. Be safe out there, sweepstakes seekers.”

Viral scams such as this are relatively common on social networks. In September, for instance, an elaborate hoax suggested that changing your Facebook status to a specific block of legalese text would make any content you share on the social network more private. This too turned out to be false.

This Is What Your Facebook Profile Looked Like Over the Last 11 Years

The Original Facebook Group Page, 2004.
The Original Facebook Group Page, 2004. Before people realized how awesome pictures are.Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2005.
Facebook Profile Page, 2005. Back when Facebook looked a little bit like MySpace. Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page Facelift, 2005.
Facebook Profile Page Facelift, 2005. The "the" is finally dropped.Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2006.
Facebook Profile Page, 2006. You no longer need to be reminded "this is you" at the top of your profile page.Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2007.
Facebook Profile Page, 2007. Every profile update still had to begin with "is," forcing you to talk about yourself in the third person. Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2008.
Facebook Profile Page, 2008. The wall. Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2009.
Facebook Profile Page, 2009. It only took five years for Facebook to create easy-to-find privacy settings. Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2010.
Facebook Profile Page, 2010. Facebook starts to get pretty. Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2011.
Facebook Profile Page, 2011. Zuckerberg realizes that people love pictures, usually of animals.Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2012.
Facebook Profile Page, 2012. The timeline allows you (or your parents) to trace your life from birth to death.Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2013-2014.
Facebook Profile Page, 2013-2014. Facebook introduced a new app, Paper, on Monday.Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook Profile Page, 2014-2015. Facebook updated both the newsfeed algorithm and the privacy settings.
Facebook Profile Page, 2014-2015. Facebook updated both the newsfeed algorithm and the privacy settings.Courtesy of Alex Fitzpatrick/Facebook

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