Story:
Announcement: Mark Zuckerberg Closing Facebook after Criticism and Privacy Concerns.
Other Versions
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is shutting down the social networking platform.
Fact Check:
A video shared widely on the social networking platform presents an alleged ‘huge announcement’ of Mark Zuckerberg Closing Facebook. The CEO has taken the decision after global criticism and privacy concerns, it is said. The video garnered significance amidst Facebook data breach issues related to Cambridge Analytica, and many users in fact believed in it. The video content is nonetheless a hoax – Mark Zuckerberg is not closing or shutting down Facebook.
About the Video of Mark Zuckerberg
The video starts with Mark Zuckerberg allegedly announcing he has decided to delete Facebook after much consideration, citing world-wide criticism and privacy concerns. Zuck created Facebook to bring people closer, but the video adds on saying studies show spending too much time on Facebook can leave people isolated and alone. The other reasons mentioned are fake news, Government and organizations trying to use Facebook to undermine democracy, and the user data privacy breaches.
On 2nd April 2018, Facebook page ‘Video Of The Internet’ shared the video in question with a title “A World Without Facebook,” questioning ‘Mark Zuckerberg deletes Facebook???’. The video went viral on Facebook.
To clarify the matter, the video actually shows a satirical film by Andrew Oleck titled “A World Without Facebook”. In other words, it is not endorsed by Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg. You can see the same note displayed at the end of the video. You can also see, the mouth region of Mark Zuckerberg (badly) edited in the video. Consequently, the satire content says without Facebook, people would enjoy real life more, making them less vulnerable and more secure.
Significantly, the short satire film “A World Without Facebook” originally appeared on YouTube on April Fool’s Day 2018. Furthermore, the original video of Mark Zuckerberg (shown below) dates back to September 2017. In that case, the video actually shows him speaking on how Facebook will work to protect election integrity; not about closing it.
Facebook Use Will Cost Money?
After the hoax video about Mark Zuckerberg Closing Facebook went viral, some pranksters used it with another story claiming Facebook use will cost money. To ensure Facebook account is not closed and use it for free, user is asked to ‘verify’ his account by sending the message to others. The false story also mentions Facebook servers have become very congested, adding the inactive users not forwarding the message will be deleted. As a matter of fact, somewhat similar hoax messages have done rounds in the past as well.
So, as of this writing, Facebook is not closing down and is free; the CEO of the social networking giant, Mark Zuckerberg has not announced any such thing.
Hoax or Fact:
Hoax.
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