Mark Zuckerberg Giving Away Billions of Pounds to Facebook Users: Hoax

Story:

Hey, guess what guys, Mark Zuckerberg is giving away billions of pounds to regular Facebook users like you and me! All you need to do is copy and paste this to your status IMMEDIATELY.

Other Versions

THANK YOU, MARK ZUCKERBERG, for your forward-thinking generosity! And congrats on becoming a dad!
Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he is giving away $45 billion of Facebook stock. What you may not have heard is that he plans to give 10% of it away to people like YOU and ME! All you have to do is copy and paste this message into a post IMMEDIATELY. At midnight PST, Facebook will search through the day’s posts and award 1000 people with $4.5 million EACH as a way of saying thank you for making Facebook such a powerful vehicle for connection.

Image of Facebook post: Mark Zuckerberg Giving Away Billions of Pounds to Facebook Users — Facebook post: Mark Zuckerberg Giving Away Billions of Pounds to Facebook Users

Analysis:

A message circulating on Facebook says that the co-founder and chief executive of the social networking platform, Mark Zuckerberg is giving away billions of pounds to regular users of the site – for simply copying and pasting the message into a post. Some versions of the story suggest that Zuckerberg announced the same after becoming a dad and that 1000 Facebook users will be selected at random and awarded with $4.5 million each. The claims are not facts.

Actual Facts

On 1 December 2015, Mark Zuckerberg announced the birth of his daughter in a Facebook post, sharing a picture of him with his wife Priscilla Chan and their new born baby daughter and pledged to giveaway 99% of his Facebook shares:

Post the announcement; some users have been posting the aforementioned messages in different variations, some even claiming it is not a hoax. As a matter of fact, Zuckerberg did not say he will be giving away huge amount of money or Facebook shares to users posting/sharing the messages. Initially Zuckerberg did not say exactly who will benefit from those Facebook shares he wants to giveaway, but later, the Independent news website independent.co.uk reported he was putting 99 per cent of his Facebook shares into the Chan Zuckerberg initiative (a limited liability company owned and controlled by Zuckerberg), a legal entity dedicated to “advancing human potential” through personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.

So the stories saying Mark Zuckerberg is giving away billions of pounds to regular Facebook users, or donating 99% of his Facebook shares to 1000 random people posting and sharing the messages are simply hoaxes. Zuckerberg did not make such kind of announcement. This reminds us of a related popular story in past that said Bill Gates is giving away $5,000 for simple sharing of a picture post on Facebook.