Hope You Didn't Fall for This Hoax Claiming Zuck Is Giving You His Money
On Dec. 1, Mark Zuckerberg announced, among other important things, that he would be giving away 99% of his Facebook shares — currently valued around $45 billion — over the course of his life. Naturally, some goofball on Facebook decided this was a great opportunity to create a bogus chain letter that told people they could score a cut of Zuck's riches.
"Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, for your forward-thinking generosity! And congrats on becoming a dad!" the letter begins. "Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he is giving away $45 billion 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."
The letter then implores readers to copy and paste the message in its entirety — "IMMEDIATELY." Facebook will supposedly parse through posts to find 1,000 people who have passed on the letter and award them each with $4.5 million "as a way of saying thank you for making Facebook such a powerful vehicle for connection and philanthropy."
If you're still wondering: No, none of this cash will go to those gullible enough to be duped. The letter is a hoax. NBC reached out to a Facebook spokesperson who assured them that it wasn't real. (Mic has reached out to Facebook for comment, and we'll update if we hear back.)
It comes from a long tradition — on Facebook and elsewhere — of posting utter crap. You may remember receiving chain emails back in the day congratulating you for making it on the "the sexy train," or telling you to "not stop reading or something bad will happen!!!!!!!!!!" The tradition has continued — it's just on Facebook now.
There have been posts that promise to keep your photos protected and posts that actually take you to sites where you might accidentally download malware. There were the posts that claimed Facebook was going to start charging its users for access. This latest Zuck hoax is nothing new.
Besides, chain emails are so passé. Outside of Facebook, teens have taken over the chain letter and turned it into something brand new — and completely perverse.
h/t NBC
