Here we go again, another one of those fake Facebook Messenger forwards.
I got this one from a relative:
“Be careful: I got a message from you or it shown on your wall here.. Please tell all the contacts in your messenger list not to accept friendship request from Andrea Wilson. She is a hacker and has the system connected to your Facebook account. If one of your contacts accepts it, you will also be hacked, so make sure that all your friends know it. Thanks. Forwarded as received. Hold your finger down on the message. At the bottom in the middle it will say forward. Hit that then click on the names of those in your list and it will send to them THIS Is REAL.”
Except this is definitely not real. Because I asked. “Did you really get a message from me? Do you have any actual reason to believe this is true?”
Of course, the answer is a resounding “NO!”
Firstly, accepting a friend request from someone doesn’t give them magical powers over your Facebook account and the ability to hack you.
Secondly, I can about guarantee you that any message that tells you to forward or copy and paste it is a big, fat, hoax. Do not, I repeat, do not foward stuff to people you don’t know for a fact is true. It scares them and it’s useless. It’s also the kind of bad habit that actually does get people hacked. Don’t do things because someone sent it to you in a forward. That’s silly!
I’ve gone from ignoring these stupid things to actually asking the people who send them to me why they did it. That may come off as a little bit aggressive, but I’ve seen the fallout that happens when people fall into the habit of just doing what someone tells them in a message. So don’t do that! Okay?