News & Issues

'Facebook Is Overpopulated' Hoax

Netlore Archive

By David Emery, About.com Guide

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Chain message circulating on Facebook claims the service is overpopulated and 'unacceptably slow,' so members must prove they're still active by reposting or forwarding the message to others.

Description: Hoax / Chain message
Circulating since: Dec. 2007 (Facebook version)
Status: False (see details below)

2010 example:
As posted on Facebook, June 19, 2010:

There are many complaints that facebook has become unacceptably slow, The report shows that facebook has a number of nonactive members. They want us to re-post this message to see who is active and who is not. If you don't post this message within 2 weeks... you will be removed in order to get more space. Post this on you wall to show that you are active in facebook

2009 example:
As posted on Facebook, March 22, 2009:

Attention all Facebook users
Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated, There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason is that there are too many non-active Facebook members And on the other side too many new Facebook members. We will be sending this messages around to see if the Members are active or not,If you're active please send to 15 other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks, The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space, If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send message to show me that your active and not deleted.

Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg

2007 example:
Chain email contributed by K. Sararas, Dec. 17, 2007:

Attention all Facebook members.
Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated, There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becoming very slow. Record shows that the reason is that there are too many non-active Facebook members And on the other side too many new Facebook members.

We will be sending this messages around to see if the Members are active or not, If you're active please send to other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks, The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,

If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send this message to show me that your active and not deleted.

Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg

Analysis: False. Prank messages threatening Internet users with deletion or cancellation if they don't prove their accounts are "active" date back to 1999. There's nothing original about this hoax except that as of 2007 it found its way onto a new platform: Facebook.

For the record, Facebook officials have made no such announcement. Moreover, businesses operating on this scale don't issue misspelled and ungrammatical chain letters to their members. Even if they did, they wouldn't say they "need to get rid of some people" to make room for everyone else.

File this message in the trash bin where it belongs.

Official statement from Facebook:

We will never use any of the following methods to tell you information, or ask for you to take an action:

Your Wall

An inbox message from a friend—in other words, chain letters.

Messages spread through Applications—if an application is telling you that Facebook is about to shut down, report it.

Since there's been a lot of wrong information about Facebook spreading around, we'd like to clarify a few things for the record:

We are not shutting down accounts that are not "active" enough.

We are not going to start charging you to use Facebook.

We will never ask you to send us your password or login information.

We will never put the responsibility on YOU to send information to your friends. If we have information we need to share, it's our job to get the word out.

When we do communicate to you about the site (with the exception of posts made on this blog) it will always be from a collective Facebook. You won't hear from me, personally, or from Mark, or from Dustin, or from any of the Facebook bloggers you've seen here.