{"id":23121,"date":"2010-02-17T07:36:24","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T15:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=23121"},"modified":"2019-12-24T13:50:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T21:50:35","slug":"facebook-gold-oh-come-on-think-a-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2010\/02\/17\/facebook-gold-oh-come-on-think-a-little\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Gold? Oh, come on. Think a little."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:3502,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.snopes.com\\\/fact-check\\\/facebook-implementing-user-fees&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20250809234444\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.snopes.com\\\/fact-check\\\/facebook-implementing-user-fees\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-06 20:34:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-06 20:34:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Okay, people. You\u2019re my friends. I like you. But you\u2019re all big kids now, and it shouldn\u2019t be difficult to notice the various scams and hoaxes out there. So why do I keep getting invited to groups which I can tell are bogus <em>from the name alone<\/em>, without even having to look at the group details?<\/p>\n<p>The latest: \u201cFacebook Gold.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strike one: this is just another variation on the \u201cFacebook is going to start charging\u201d rumor, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/fact-check\/facebook-implementing-user-fees\/\">has already been debunked<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Strike two: the group name is \u201c~~UPGRADE NOW WHILE THEIR FREE~~\u201d. What are the chances that, if Facebook were to introduce some sort of \u201cgold\u201d upgrade that\u2026<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>They\u2019d do so using a Facebook group, instead of an official announcement.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>That the group name would be in ALL CAPITALS with cute little tildes (the squigglies) at either end.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>That the group name would have a friggin\u2019 grammatical error in it (\u201ctheir,\u201d denoting posession, as in, \u201ctheir education is lacking,\u201d instead of \u201cthey\u2019re,\u201d the contraction of \u201cthey are\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Strike three: when you go to the group, there are a number of things that should tip you off that this probably isn\u2019t legit.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The gold version of the facebook logo is mangled in the small version of the group icon at the top of the page.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>The title is \u201cjoin now while they\u2019re free,\u201d implying that the free status is temporary. However, the text towards the top of the intro page says that \u201cthere will never be a charge to upgrade to Gold Membership Status.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>The three steps to \u201cupgrade.\u201d If this were a real, official, Facebook-driven upgrade, why in the world would you have to go through these three steps?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You wouldn\u2019t need to \u201cbecome a fan,\u201d there would be a signup form or switch somewhere in the account settings.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>You wouldn\u2019t need to \u201cinvite your friends\u201d \u2014 and this step should be a major red flag, as that\u2019s how the spammers\/hoaxers behind these things get you to do the dirty work of spreading these things out to all your contacts \u2014 because Facebook would be pimping this new feature out.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>And you wouldn\u2019t need to \u201cvisit [a] webpage\u201d (the button for which, incidentally, is visually different from the rest of the Facebook-designed buttons\u2026this should also be a red flag), because you\u2019re already on the Facebook site.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>They invite you to leave a comment in what looks to be a Facebook-normal comment thread, but when you move your mouse arror to the text entry box, instead of changing to a text entry cursor, it changes to the \u201cyou\u2019re about to click a link\u201d pointy finger. Not normal behavior.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>If you <em>do<\/em> click on the comment box, rather than getting to enter a comment, you get taken to an ugly page that tells you that you have to complete a quick survey to complete the gold upgrade. I don\u2019t know how many there might be, but the two choices I got were \u201cWhich Lady Gaga Song are You?\u201d and \u2014 in a somewhat amusing burst of irony \u2014 \u201cHow DUMB are YOU?\u201d At this point, if anyone still thinks this is an official Facebook thing\u2026well, I don\u2019t want to know you. Let me know, and I\u2019ll take you off my friends list.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>If, rather than clicking on the comment box, you actually decide to look at the rest of the group information to try to determine its legitimacy, here\u2019s what you\u2019ll find:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Under the \u201cInfo\u201d tab: nothing. It\u2019s completely blank.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Under the \u201cWall\u201d tab: nothing except a \u201c~~UPGRADE NOW WHILE THEIR FREE~~ joined Facebook\u201d notification.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Strike four: if you\u2019re <em>still<\/em> not sure, if there\u2019s still some small voice thinking that sure, it looks shady, but <em>maybe<\/em> it\u2019s actually legit (sigh), then do the bare minimum of research. Go to Google and start typing \u201cfacebook gold account\u201d. Before you even get past \u201cgold\u201d, Google pops up its list of suggestions. The first three:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>facebook gold account<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>facebook gold account hoax<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>facebook gold account scam<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Really, people. How difficult is it to start looking at this stuff, fire up two brain cells to rub together, and figure out that this is crap?<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, I guess the answer to that is \u201cvery,\u201d as there are currently 89,874 \u201cfans\u201d who fell for this, some of whom are in my circle of friends. I don\u2019t mean to be a jerk, and it\u2019s rare that I get quite this ranty at people I know, but come <em>on<\/em>. You guys are smarter than this.<\/p>\n<p>Please, people. Start thinking about what you see and read instead of just leaping blindly for every link you see. You\u2019ll be less frustrated \u2014 and so will the rest of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please, people. Start thinking about what you see and read instead of just leaping blindly for every link you see. You\u2019ll be less frustrated \u2014 and so will the rest of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2033,2038],"tags":[3498],"class_list":["post-23121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond-the-blog","category-tech","tag-from-facebook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}