Early last month we joined up with several other scam busting sites as part of a concerted effort against the sick baby photos circulating heavily on Facebook. These photos are usually accompanied by a message stating Facebook will donate money to the sick child based on the number of likes or shares received. As we have warned before, this is not true – Facebook will not make any such donation.

The open letter issued on February 4^th was a plea to Facebook and other media outlets to help raise awareness on this issue. Unfortunately, this campaign was not effective in slowing down the viral spread of these photo hoaxes.

So, here we are on March 13, and the situation is worse than before. These photos are being added and circulated much, much faster than they are being removed.

Miles Renatus, the owner of the blog ‘Privacy and Security Guide,’ has written:

An Open Letter To Facebook

Several blogs have signed the letter. The goal is to again raise awareness on this issue, and to respectfully request Facebook take increase their communication with Facebook users regarding these hoaxes. As mentioned in the letter, a simple message to all Facebook users would do a great deal in slowing them down. We are also asking Facebook to improve internal reporting tools and detection mechanisms that would further aid in eradicating this blight from Facebook.

Miles Renatus and Collective Minds (our collective group of scam busting sites) are sponsoring an online petition on this issue. Please sign on and encourage your friends to do the same:

http://www.petitiononline.com/babyscam/petition.html

Recommended Resources

BitDefender Safego is a Facebook application you can install that will scan your News Feed and help keep you safe from scams like this.

PRIVATE WiFi® is a Personal VPN that encrypts everything you send and receive. Don’t access Facebook from a public WiFi hotspot without it.

Roboform is a 5 Star, award winning password manager. Reduce all passwords to just one, and automatically login to websites.