Rumours spreading on social media are claiming that by going to your “block list” on Facebook and typing Facebook Security you can bring up a list of profiles paid to monitor (or stalk) your profile.
Many versions of the rumour implore readers to hit the block button next to the profiles to prevent them from stalking your profile. Others claim these profiles “cannot be blocked”.
The warnings are completely bogus, and are just a renewed version of an older hoax that spread back in 2014. Some examples of these recent set of hoaxes include –
Do you know if you go to your block list and type in “facebook security” and hit block, it gives you a list of the people who are paid to watch YOUR posts.. it’s messed up. And you can’t block them either. I found 8 on mine, other people have found 20+! And you can’t block ANY of them!
OMG!!! WTF??! I thought it was BS…
Do you know if you go to your block list and type in “facebook security” and hit block, it gives you a list of the people who are paid to watch YOUR posts.. it’s messed up. And you can’t block them either. I found like 30!! And you can’t block ANY of them!
On your FB page, go up in the upper right corner. Click on the dark padlock. Click on the “How Can I stop someone from bothering me.” A dropdown menu appears. In the space, type “Facebook Security.” A list of people will show up who have been assigned to monitor you and the things you post from Facebook. Try to block these people. You can’t. Do this fast, because this glitch in their “security” will be fixed once they know we’ve figured out who they are on FB who are following you, to see who has been assigned to spy on you, censoring you. Now you know why some of your posts disappear.
Well well well,…. Look at this! Go to your Facebook Settings, and click on ‘Blocking.’ Type, ‘All Facebook security’ and click go or enter. You will see who Facebook has assigned to keep an eye on your profile.
Mine were two Muslims in Indonesia.
~ Uwie All Dhozan
~ Huosain All Raqi ” ?????
I CAN’T BLOCK THEM!…OR REPORT THEM.
So what is really going on?
It’s simple really. When you go to Blocking in your account settings and type in a name and hit the Block button, Facebook searches for any accounts related to that search item. Facebook may prioritise accounts that have some kind of connection with you, for example mutual friends. Facebook then offers you the choice to block that account.
Now, in this case of this rumour, readers are instructed to type “Facebook Security”, so accounts who have (or have had) either the term “Facebook” or “Security” in either their main account name, nee (maiden) name OR workplace will appear in the search results. Often these are compromised accounts that have had their name changed, but pose little risk to you.
The implication that these accounts are “paid to stalk you” is entirely, 100% baseless. This assertion seems to have been plucked out of thin air, and makes literally no sense whatsoever. If Facebook were surreptitiously trying to stalk you, why would they need Facebook accounts to do that? Much less Facebook accounts that are visible to you when you type in “Facebook Security” in your Blocking section?
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However this glaring inconsistency seems to have been lost on many who have chosen to share this false information with their friends. As we pointed out above, a near identical rumour spread in 2014 (we reported on it here) and even that was based on an even earlier version of the same hoax that replaced “Facebook Security” with “Automation Labs”.
But hold, on, I can’t block these accounts?
Many users have [correctly] spotted that when trying to block certain accounts, they get error messages.
What these users are most likely experiencing is a common type of safeguard designed to prevent “mass action” events (any unique action repeated thousands of times in a small period of time.) In this case, such a safeguard would have been triggered when lots of users all blocked a specific account in a short period of time.
These safeguards are common and exist to prevent any real damage done in the event that any type of automated software “bot” infiltrates Facebook. In this case, the safeguard prevented any more accounts from repeating the blocking action on a specific account that already received plenty of blocks from people who have already fallen for this hoax.
So in summary (TL;DR)
Typing in “Facebook Security” in the Blocking section of your Facebook account simply brings up accounts related to those search terms. These are not paid stalker accounts. The rumour is entirely baseless.
The warning is patently absurd and we do not recommend passing it on.