Don’t fall for this “nobody will share my photo” scheme on Facebook

The latest “in” type of like-farming is the “it’s my birthday but I’m disabled and nobody will share my photo” variant, as a number of viral posts have clearly demonstrated.

Facebook spammers will do anything that works. In the past that’s been claiming Facebook donates money for shares. Or that typing Amen equates to a prayer. Now spammers are hoping you can be emotionally exploited into believing disabled people can’t get Facebook users to share their photo. Not even on their birthday.

And as a result, this post has gone viral.

Today is my birthday.
Give me one SHARE as my gift, only one SHARE.
….
Because I don’t Have one leg Nobody shared My picture

That means there are still enough Facebook users out there who are vulnerable to such brazen and unashamed means of exploitation that posts like this can still garner tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of shares on Facebook.

Like-farming is the technique spammers use to exploit or deceive other Facebook users into engaging with Facebook posts, so the Facebook pages behind them can accumulate followers.

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Of course the girl in this photo (who we’ve blurred out) hasn’t made this post. Nor did she give permission for the people who did post her photo to do so. It’s not her birthday (probably) and in real life we’re quite sure she probably doesn’t want complete strangers sharing her photo.

But the notion that a disabled girl can’t get people to share her photo on her birthday demonstrably provides adequate motivation for thousands of users to click share, which is exactly what the Facebook spammers want. Facebook users who share the photo are falling into their trap, and they probably have no idea.

Please don’t share these photos, or engage with them in any way. And the same goes to the pages that publish these posts as well. We discuss more on this type of like-farming here.