Earlier this week we covered a false security threat which had misspelled the KoobFace virus as “knobface”. Now it appears that threat rumor has continued spreading to hundreds of thousands of users and continue to this minute. Despite the article, and the rise of a couple of new threats since this rumor emerged, word of mouth has driven this rumor through a large portion of Facebook users. While there is a virus called KoobFace, no messages appear to be circulating from “SmartGirl15″ with the subject “Barack Obama Clinton Scandal” as many people believe.
It’s truly incredible how fast a security rumor can spread on Facebook and there’s often times no way to fix it. Even Facebook has been forced to announce on their homepage that they will never charge for the site. Even with these aggressive tactics, plenty of users continue to believe that Facebook may one day charge.
With so many Facebook users willing to blindly spread rumors through their Facebook profile, one has to wonder how this will be used to spread propaganda in the future. Fortunately you can watch rumors spread in real-time now, which somewhat helps combat the issue, however it illustrates how quickly false information can spread. Are any of your friends still posting about the “Obama Clinton Scandal” and “SmartGirl15″. What other rumors are you seeing circulated?
Source: All Facebook
Wednesday, July 21, 2010