Are you on Facebook? If you are, you’ve most likely received a repetitive, canned note (or 100) from your friends/family that is driving you into a fit of rage. If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. However, there’s indeed an irritating hoax going around that has grabbed some serious attention. Here’s what the message says: 

Hi….I actually got another friend request from you yesterday…which I ignored so you may want to check your account. Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too….I had to do the people individually. Good Luck! 

Spoiler: there’s no ‘clone’ account. This is just a hoax, so delete the message and be worry-free that an account or second-degree account is compromised. 

We’re all familiar with this level of chain-like-mail, but what makes this time so different? The obvious answer could be any of the following: 

• It’s coming from friends & family — so you can trust it
• There’s clear instruction on what to do
• It doesn’t contain a link
• You’re doing it through Messenger (it’s more novel), vs. a status update

However, it goes deeper than that.

We need to remember that Facebook has its fair share of ‘bad press’ (yes, there is such a thing) the past couple years, stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal which affected 87 million accounts. Then, all 2.2 billion Facebook users received a notice in an effort to inform them on how to protect their information. Add to this that on September 28th, hackers exploited a flaw which resulted in compromised data for 50 million accounts. Yikes. 

And what do you get when you mix that all together?

A user constantly on high-alert due to the endless loop of security & privacy concerns

The decision to forward is almost an irrational one–and an innate reaction to Facebook’s shaky history and hyper-recent exploitation. All of that creates an uncomfortable level of ‘unknown’ when it comes to privacy and, at the end of the day, your friends & family are really just trying to help inform of a potential concern. 

So, the next time you receive one of these messages, maybe take a deep breath and if you feel like a good Samaritan, let them know that they don’t need to forward the message out to anyone else–the clones aren’t here (yet).