Various links are continuing to circulate Facebook imploring users to visit webpages to watch videos.
However when trying to watch the video, users are told they must first share it on their Facebook accounts, thus spreading the video link to their friends as well.
Share-to-watch videos are a popular type of spam that circulates social media websites like Facebook, and can potentially be used in combination with a number of different online scams.
They work by forcing users to spread the video to their friends. After that the scam can take any of several different routes. In many cases the user is directed to survey scams which request users give away their personal information, leading to spam. In other cases the videos can trick users into downloading harmful files to get the video to play.
The videos used as bait by these share-to-watch scams often don’t exist. For example the video purporting to show the largest snake in Brazil is fake, and the video claiming to show a man attacked by a shark is actually a behind-the-scene image from Jaws: The Revenge.
We recommend users avoid trying to watch videos that your friends post from Facebook that try and force you to share them with your friends first. This is ultimately spam that you are spreading on to your friends, and in some instances can potentially be very dangerous.
Read our full article on this type of spam here.
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