A Facebook hoax has been making the rounds and claims that the social media giant is overpopulated and will delete inactive users on November 15 - unless of course you share the information with others.

Here is an example of one of the messages being spread: "Hi, this is a message from the creator of Facebook and it tells you a little bit about what is going to happen to Facebook on the 15th of November. Please don't send this back to the person you recieved(sic) it from. Dear Facebook members, Facebook is supposed to be closing down November 15th because it is becoming very overpopulated. There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becoming very slow. Records show that there are many active Facebook members and also many new members. We will be sending this message around to see if members are active or not. If you are active please send to 15 other users using copy paste to show that you are still active. *Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks will be deleted without hesitation to make more space. Send this message to all of your friends to show that you are still active and you will not be deleted. Founder of Facebook..Remember to send this to 15 other people so your account wont be deleted."



According to Hoax-Slayer, these "warnings", and others of a similar nature, are again circulating via Facebook as well as email, Twitter, and instant messages. Versions of these absurd "Facebook closure" warning messages have been circulating since at least 2007.

Any claim that your account with a particular service will be deleted if you do not forward a message to others is certain to be a hoax. No legitimate company is ever likely to conduct business in this manner, least of all a hugely popular and successful entity such as Facebook.

As of right now the messages are not harmful, but as we know, online criminals will seize any opportunity to catch some prey...

I actually got a bit excited with this at first - thinking that if I left my profile inactive it would be deleted without having to jump through, as I call them, the "Facebook account anti-deletion protocols," which make it a month long process to actually fully close your account.