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Warn your friends they can’t bypass Facebook with this hoax

No, none of us can "bypass" Facebook's newsfeed algorithms by copy-pasting our way past them.
Written by
January 03, 2019
Naked Security chain letter Facebook Facebook hoax Hoax Social Media viral hoax

Sorry to say, but 2019 has not ushered in new “tips to bypass FB” as it supposedly limits posts on your news feed.

Nor has Facebook ushered in a new algorithm that “chooses the same few people – about 25 – who will read your posts”, at least not that we’ve heard.

Rather, we’re still stuck with whatever murky, stubbornly unfathomable algorithms Facebook uses to determine the order of content in our feeds, regardless of what the latest, breathless spin on this wheezy old hoax wants you to believe. To wit:

Thanks for the tips to bypass FB – it WORKS!! I have a whole new news feed. I’m seeing posts from people I haven’t seen in years.
Here’s how to bypass the system FB now has in place that limits posts on your news feed.
Their new algorithm chooses the same few people – about 25 – who will read your posts. Therefore, Hold your finger down anywhere in this post and “copy” will pop up. Click “copy”. Then go your page, start a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. “Paste” will pop up and click paste. This will bypass the system. Hi new and old friends!

The last time we wrestled with this particular pudding was back in February when Snopes debunked the viral hoax and said no, a new Facebook algorithm will NOT only show you 26 friends.

Snopes pointed out at the time that the algorithm hoax followed on the heels of a real Facebook announcement from 11 January 2018 about a major overhaul in how newsfeed works.

It wasn’t about squeezing out your friends, though. In fact, Facebook had the opposite in mind: it said it was working on turning the tables when it comes to personal content from friends and family making way for an explosion of corporate posts, be they from corporations, businesses or media.

Snopes contacted Facebook to ask whether the claim of limiting personal interactions had merit. A representative said no, it does not. Why is the rumor, then, still lying its way to the top of newsfeeds? By convincing a user to copy and paste, rather than share the post, it’s much harder to shut it down.

The best thing you can do is carefully sidestep this cow patty. You can also do us all a solid by warning your friends not to perpetuate the spread of fake news posts.

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36 Comments

When did Snopes because a reliable resource ?

Since they actually do the research instead of just “going with the uninformed social media rumors,” is when.

Always…..they always show sources and documentation….if you care to read them.

I trust SNOPES…it’s saved me from spam several times

I’ve had numerous occasions where Snopes and I have independently agreed that X is a scam, and where history has ultimately shown that we were both correct.

I have yet to see – and it’s many years and counting now – a single case where Snopes declared X to be a scam when my own independent opinion was that it was not.

Therefore when someone states, without any evidence whatsover, that they have examples of Snopes egregiously mixing up scams and non-scams…

…I can see no reason to take any notice.

The way to bypass Facebook, is to completely delete your account and read your news through some other means. With the current climate, and data disruptions it is not your friend.

Got some pathologically cynical people on Facebook these days.
Not saying it isn’t warranted. Zuckerberg is no less a crass exploiter than Dick Cheney on his worst day.
Mark made it clear from day one. He TOLD us he was a snake. He never mentioned any intention to stop.

Why can’t Facebook stop the hackers from taking over one’s Facebook page?? That’s my biggest question.

Shocked that the hint to recover old friends/family posts is a hoax? – I had thought I wasn’t able to compete the over-ride because my IPad is old but it’s because it’s a lie!

While the status is a hoax, FB’s algorithm does severely limit which posts from friends appear on your timeline. I’ve literally not seen posts made about friends who actually died before and had to search through their pages independently, especially due to all of those advertisements, etc.. Friends who deleted their accounts and created new ones have confirmed that the content that appears on their timeline – including posts from friends they’ve readded – is dramatically different than before.

The one thing that has been the case for a LONG time, now, and that FB told us all about upfront, is that they do stop showing posts from people who do not actually post TO you (i. e., actually COMMENT on your posts; clicking “like” or the “laughing emoji” over and over and over does not count as “commenting).

Unless you’re on FB 24/7, you will never see all of your friends posts! FB is constantly ‘turning’, so the more friends you have then the less posts you’re likely to see, dependent on how prolific your friends are at posting…

It’s too bad this is a hoax and doesn’t work. Because Facebook is a f’n joke nowadays. I took a 6 month break from FB back in June and I’m still debating whether or not to go back and even check my notifs. I got so damn tired of facebook constantly hiding most of my friends posts (and vice versa). Out of my 200+ friends, it was showing posts from maybe 7 or 8 friends no matter what I did. This was NEVER the case before facebook put in their new shi**y algorithm last year and totally RUINED the site. Hell, it won’t even tell me how many notifications I have. Facebook sends so much spam notifications that they made the notification counter stop reading at “99”. They KNOW they are spamming when they have to hide the real amount. They keep dumbing down their site more and more.

There are ways to fix which posts from which people you want to see most by adding them as favorites. Who wants to see posts from everyone you are FB friends with. (Political differences have divided a lot of friends on FB). If you don’t comment on each others posts chances are they won’t appear in notifications. FB asks if I want to see posts from people I haven’t responded to lately . If I have a problem it’s usually on my end that I can fix. When all else fails …. Google your problem.

If you want to see posts from all your friends then simply go to preferences and choose “Most Recent”

I wish that was the case. Whatever I do to keep ‘Most Recent’ as the default, it reverts to ‘News Feed’ within minutes.

When I switch to most recent, I get mostly For Sale Groups, from people I don’t know, groups I’m not in
Top Story constantly shows me the same handful of posts

I believe that you can choose a list of friends that you want to see most. But, it is limited to a certain number of friends so choose wisely.

Is this a technique for some nefarious organization to get the information or contact list from anyone who responds?

I’m very close to dumping FB. Social media is so unreliable that it borders on criminal behavior. I don’t have time to waste on any more fake/false messaging.
Integrity has disapoeared from the public forum.

Does anyone out there think that Facebook would tell us the truth if they were doing this????
But let’s say that it is true, it is nothing but a hoax.
Okay, then please explain to me why my number of friends has increased, but the likes, comments etc. are less than ever before. I purposely have a select group of friends on Facebook. When I set up my Facebook account, almost everyone of my friends responded in some way. Now it is only 20 – 25 no matter what I post.
So something is happening somewhere.

Here’s the thing. Facebook doesn’t tell everyone about everything that anyone says. It does, indeed, have its own confidential algorithms that try to decide which posts would be most interesting for which people…

…but whatever algorithm it uses, *why would copying and pasting the exact message in the hoax* make Facebook change its algorithm just for you?

I depend on you guys that know a lot more than I do.. to help sort it all out. Please keep taking the time to comment. There are a lot more of us, than there are of you.. Keep the advice, ideas, attempts, etc. coming..

Snopes is two people( husband and wife ) working out of their basement. Neither is an expert in infornation, only trolls in misinformation. We have provided fake posts and no comment from them. We posted the facts that was scientifically proven and all of sudden they screamed. Never will trust them.

I approved this comment, although I don’t usually bother with unsubstantiated claims that make neither reference to the subject under discussion (a well-known hoax) nor offer any evidence at all.

I approved it simply to be able to say, “If you don’t have any evidence to help the discussion along, this is not the way to join in.”

You didn’t fact check your fact checking…lol. Snopes was originally called Urban Legends Reference Pages, and predated the now common fact checking via search engines, and was popular among use Usenet crowds during the days of dial-up internet. It did start out in a basement, and was ran by David and Barbara Mikkelson, and it was based on people in the Usenet groups discussing popular urban legends and folklore, with some presenting pictures and documents. Before it even officially became Snopes.com they had gone to silicon valley and started a business. They now have hundreds of employees, a board of directors and two other sub websites, that do more specific things. The site contracts with and does fact checking for the likes of Facebook, CNN, MSNBC, Fortune, and Forbes. Pretty sure they’re not still doing that out of their basement, unless that is a slang word the kids have for a giant multi story office building.

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