You may have noticed some of your friends sharing a long-winded Facebook post claiming CEO Mark Zuckerberg is giving away $4.5 million dollars to 1,000 lucky Facebook users. Unfortunately, the so-called Facebook lottery is nothing but a hoax.
Hundreds of users have been posting the message which reads, in part, “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 per cent of it away to people like you and me. All you have to do is copy and paste this message into a post immediately.”
The hoax is referencing Zuckerberg’s announcement that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, will donate 99 per cent of their Facebook stock – roughly $45 billion dollars – to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, aimed at fighting disease, improving education, harnessing clean energy, reducing poverty and promoting equal rights around the world.
But the announcement included nothing about donating money to random Facebook users.
READ MORE: Facebook users falling for another copyright protection hoax
Some variations of the hoax claim media outlets, such as Good Morning America, have confirmed the Facebook lottery. However, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the post is nothing more than a hoax.
Some variation of these hoaxes goes viral sporadically. In September, thousands of users fell victim to the infamous copyright protection hoax that surfaces on the social network every once in a while – Global News reported on a similar post back in December 2014. In fact, Facebook first warned users about these types of hoaxes back in 2012.
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