Fake Facebook message warns users not to accept Andrea Wilson hacker

A message is spreading across social media that warns users not to accept a Facebook user called Andrea Wilson because she is a hacker. Many variants of the warning claim that if one of your friends accepts her, you will be hacked.

FALSE

If the warning rings a bell, it should. That’s because it’s identical to an array of other phantom hacker hoaxes, with the only difference being the name of the alleged hacker.

“Please tell all the contacts in your messenger list not to accept friendship request from Andrea Wilson . She is a hacker and has the system connected to your Facebook account. If one of your contacts accepts it, you will also be hacked, so make sure that all your friends know it. Thanks. Forwarded as received.
Hold your finger down on the message. At the bottom in the middle it will say forward. Hit that then click on the names of those in your list and it will send to them THIS Is REAL”

This permutation of the hoax – which has been spreading since late 2017 – is garbled nonsense from start to finish. Just like previous incarnations of the same hoax, the warning contains sentences like “and has the system connected to your Facebook account” that simply just don’t make any sense.

The warning also claims that if one of your friends accepts her as a friend you’ll be hacked, which is just nonsense. You cannot get automatically “hacked” for accepting a friend request on Facebook, nor can you get “automatically hacked” when one of your friends accepts a friend request. (With that said, we still don’t recommend accepting strangers, as this may subsequently can lead to privacy concerns.)

In fact, any claim that Andrea Wilson is a hacker, and accepting her as a friend on Facebook is nonsense, and out-dated nonsense at that. Hoaxes of an identical ilk have been circulating social media for decades, targeting other platforms including MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and even AIM.

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In 2017 a number of viral rumours that were almost identical to this managed to spread across Facebook, one quoting Jayden K Smith and another quoting Fabrizio Branbilla. However both of these were based on even earlier permutations that have been spreading for many years now.

And this latest version quoting Andrea Wilson offers nothing new to this niche of Internet hoax. It is merely the same hoax with yet another name attached. We recommend not sharing it.