If you’ve had a Facebook account for more than five minutes you’re probably aware that scams and hoaxes abound on there.
While the scams can be incredibly dangerous, the hoaxes are usually merely irritating instead of being truly harmful.
The thing is, the irritation these hoaxes cause can become quite intense when the same hoaxes keep popping up over and over again.
Luckily, most of the hoaxes that pop up and make the rounds on Facebook include at least one phrase that’s always a dead-giveaway that the post is a hoax.
For example, if you see a post that includes some variation of the phrase “Send this to all your contacts” you can rest assured that whatever it is that you’ve been instructed to do won’t do anything besides irritate all of your friends.
Likewise, if you see a post that says something like “This is real. I saw it on the Channel 13 news!” you’ll know right away that it’s a hoax.
Well, another similar phrase has been making the rounds in various hoaxes of late. The actual text and instructions included in theses hoaxes can vary quite a bit, but all of them will include some variation of this:
“It Actually Worked!!“
But guess what? It didn’t work, and it never will.
Like the common hoax phrase “It can’t hurt to try“, the phrase “It Actually Worked!!” is intended to give the reader a reason to give whatever the hoax is claiming to accomplish a try, regardless of how little sense the jist of the hoax makes.
If these hoaxes just made the rounds once and then died out it wouldn’t be so bad, but they irritate me to no end when they keep making the rounds over and over again. And my guess is they irritate you just as much.
What’s more, Facebook hoaxes are often reposted and reshared by folks who have already posted them at least once before. If “it really worked” there would be no reason to post it again.
Bottom line: You can save yourself a lot of aggravation and wasted time by simply scanning your Newsfeed for these common hoax phrases and ignoring any posts that include them.
And perhaps even more important, not sharing or reposting those hoaxes will save your friends a lot of aggravation and wasted time as well.