Facebook takedown notice for overpopulation (“Attention all Facebook membeRs.”)

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// I recently received this Facebook message from a conscientious friend:

Subject: dont want to be deleted but ill feel like a loser if its a fake

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 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 Zuckerberg

This is a scam. Here are one, two and three blog posts about it.

A cheap and easy way to see if something like this is a scam is to analyze the writing. There are capitalization errors, spacing errors, grammar errors and paragraphing errors. Also, and this is more fiddly, chief executives do not sign their emails this way. Generally the format for professional email is:

Name of Professional
Name of Organization
Position in Organization
Phone Number and Extension

To use an example from someone I know. “Founder of Facebook” is not nearly formal enough. Also, have you ever received a message posted to your wall from Facebook? The wall, as I understand it, is for Friend to Friend communications. Facebook the company would email us–it certainly has the capability.

Again fiddly, but think about this message from a technical viewpoint. Facebook is run on servers. What do you do when you need more space on servers? You buy more servers! Google and MySpace use signifigantly more memory than Facebook and it would be a silly business decision for Facebook to start alienating its members by threatening them with take down notices.

Finally, the line “If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations” should tip you off. This is not how major companies solicit funds. Make no mistake, Facebook is a for-profit company and makes loads of money off of the adds it puts on your pages. Wikipedia can ask for money because it’s not a for profit company. Facebook employees and Mark Zuckerberg are making tons of money off of us–and since we like their service, that’s ok. However there is no circumstance when Facebook would ask for money by posting on your Wall.

Hope you have a great Solstice!

Inspirational Quote:

Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -Benjamin Franklin