During the weekend the rumor that Facebook is going to close on March 15 started spreading. It seems that an online tabloid started this rumor by reporting alleged statements from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who allegedly stated that running the site has become too stressful. Well, considering that the same site reports that aliens are going to attack the Earth this year that’s not particularly shocking news.

I checked the calendar and April 1 is still far away. I could understand if the date announced to close Facebook had been April 1 but is it possible that this rumor spread out in such a viral way based on unconfirmed statements?

Actually, I’m not surprised, on the contrary considering the average level of Facebook users I expected total panic with hospitals already full of people who tried to take their own lives out of desperation after reading that rumor.

Last summer rumor came out that there was a crack for Firefox 4: yes, the browser that can be freely copied and whose source is available to everyone! In August version 4 was in the alpha stage so it made sense to use it only to test it, especially if you created an add-on for Firefox. The alleged crack was actually hiding malware but who knows how many people swallowed the bait.

Back to Facebook, sometimes you read rumors about the social network becoming a pay site. Often the rumor is spread by someone who then spread alleged suggestions about the way to keep on using it for free activating an application developed by the authors of the rumor. Generally, it hides malware which if you’re lucky steals data from the dupes who activate it.

I could rant about people who believe everything – in the past it was what was said on TV, today it’s what they read on the Internet – without turning on their brains and checking the news. I hope that for someone this story might be a lesson, I’m afraid it will be of little use.