Reply Attention all Facebook members.
Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated,
There have been many members complaining that Facebook
is becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason is
that there are too many non-active Facebook members
And on the other side too many new Facebook members.
We will be sending this messages around to see if the
Members are active or not,If you're active please send
to 15 other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active
Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks,
The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,
If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send
this message to show me that your active and not deleted.
Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerber
Let's deconstruct this a little. First off, Mark Zuckerberg, the 24 year old prodigy who runs a company with an implied $15 billion market capitalization, doesn't understand the proper use of "your" versus "you're" (I really hope this is not the case, because I know the difference, and if he doesn't, it means that he is younger than me, and also has worse grammatical skills, and is still a billionaire).
Second, Mark (being the friendly guy that he is) has taken time out of his duties as CEO of Facebook to tell all his good friends that facebook is overpopulated. Too many people. He wants there to be fewer people using his company's product. Makes sense.
Finally, he wants to personally hear back from everyone on Facebook to make sure they're active! He must be planning to come in for a few hours on Saturday to go through all those responses.
If ever there were a compelling case for increasing our efforts at teaching critical thinking skills in school, the existence of this message in my inbox is it.
2 comments:
the real clincher for me is the fact that, in signing off, the man spelled HIS OWN NAME wrong!
some people have wayyyy too much time on their hands. time that might be better spent.... learning english?
I think the most blatant giveaway that it is false, is that administrators would never need you to actively demonstrate that you using your account. They already know that. It's their site.
But despite the obvious falsity of these e-mails/messages, somebody I know actually responded to a post like that (and I can assume more), although it was on hotmail. The "we're just making sure you still use your account" scam has been around for a while.
When I saw them responding (I was next to the computer when this was happening) I immediately asked why they would ever respond to an e-mail like that. They said they didn't want to have their account closed. Once I realised they actually believed that the e-mail was real, I immediately pointed out all the (obvious) reasons, just as you have, as to why an e-mail like that would NEVER be real. They responded anyway, saying they "just wanted to be safe, just in case it was real."
The whole experience made me want to barf. I also think I incurred brain damage from it.
On another note, doesn't it make you feel stupid having to explain stuff like this to people?
Last week I had to explain to some people why it was EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that "bigfoot" had been found. Halfway through the explanation I had to stop, because I couldn't bring myself to provide compelling arguments against an idiotic one. Instead, I just resorted to unbridled sarcasm. "Oh really? They found bigfoot? It's about time. In fact, I actually KNOW bigfoot, we chill all the time. Him and the Loch Ness Monster. We're boys."
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