Facebook Going Down: Hoax Story About Site Closing For Member Purge Goes Viral

Facebook is going down on March 15, a viral message making the rounds on the social networking site claims.

The message claims that the site is closing to do a bit of maintenance, getting rid of accounts that they feel are inactive. To stay active, members are asked to share this message:

Dear Facebook members, Facebook is supposed to be closing down March 15th because it is becoming very overpopulated. There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becoming very slow. Records show that there are many active Facebook members and also many new members. We will be sending this message around to see if members are active or not. If you are active please send to 15 other users using copy+paste to show that you are still active. Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks will be deleted without hesitation to make more space. Send this message to all of your friends to show that you are still active and you will not be deleted. Founder of Facebook. Remember to send this to 15 other people so your account wont be deleted.

The only problem is that the story about Facebook going down is pure hoax. For one, the site worth billions of dollars would certainly have the room for as many members — active or inactive — as possible. Also, if Facebook were truly thinking about closing down, they could afford some more effective market research than asking members to forward along a message.

The site has no plans to kick out members, and in fact its founder Mark Zuckerberg is thinking about growth.

This month, as Facebook celebrated the 10th anniversary of when Zuckerberg and some friend started the site in a Harvard University dorm room, Mark talked about their plans to grow.

“I’ve spent a lot of late nights pacing around my living room with teammates just trying to plot out what our next move can be in order to keep pushing forward on this mission,” he told the Today show in an interview. “But one of the big things that I’ve taken away from the last 10 years is, there’s always a next move and you just need to keep on pushing forward and keep on doing the best thing that you can.”

There is precedent for the story about Facebook going down. Rumors have circulated a number of times that the site will either get rid of members or pull the plug, including another hoax report in 2012 that Zuckerberg was tired of Facebook and shutting down the site.