Don’t Fall For The Latest Facebook ‘Hacking’ Hoax

I saw it for the first time late last week: an acquaintance from college posted something about how she had received a message about a friend receiving a friend request from her from a bogus account that the friend in question supposedly ignored, but she should “check her account.” It also recommends forwarding the message to everyone you know and provides instructions on how to do so.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/10/how-to-delete-your-facebook-account-a-checklist/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/10/Facebook-410×231.png” title=”How To Nuke Your Facebook Account From Orbit” excerpt=”Let’s talk about that elephant in the room. Facebook’s recent disclosure that attackers got their hands on access tokens for an unknown number of Facebook accounts is a big deal, since it’s the kind of hack that you, a happy Facebook user, could not prevent.”]

While that is certainly a thing that happens on Facebook, there’s a solid chance that what you’re getting is just the same message your friend received, forwarded to everyone on their friend list. A message they lik received from another friend that did the same thing

Don’t do it.

A good way to see if there is, in fact, a fake you out there trying to steal all your friends is to just do a search for your name. If you see another you out there, you can click on the “Report this profile” button on the bogus account’s page to have it reported to Facebook. If all things work as they should, the bogus account should be shut down within 24 hours.

If you do see a fake you, then is a good time to just post something on your wall letting friends know what’s up. No need to spam everyone. If you see some of your friends are already friends with fake you, ping them privately and let them know they’ve been duped.