Presented By
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the F8 summit in San Francisco, California, on March 25, 2015.
JOSH EDELSON—AFP/Getty Images

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:

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.

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com.

You May Also Like
EDIT POST