The Jayden K Smith Facebook Hoax Shows Humans Are Still Internet Idiots

You use Facebook, right? No doubt you’ve been warned by your more socially naïve friends not to accept a request from Jayden K Smith. Well, unsurprisingly, this is a hoax and your friends are idiots for sharing it.

Actually, it's a hoax that's been around since 2009 and the fact it’s being shared around is evidence that the human race are still stupid enough to blindly spread a lie before even thinking to research it.

Chances are you’ve seen something like the following in your inbox:

"Please tell all the contacts in your Messenger list, not to accept Jayden K Smith friendship request. He 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."

To break this down factually, there is zero evidence of any Jayden K Smith friend requesting thousands of people, and the act of sending large amounts of unknown users a friend request is against Facebook’s terms and conditions – with contravening maybe resulting in a ban. Further to this, accepting a Facebook friend request will not give hackers access to your computer and online accounts in anyway shape or form.

It’s fake. Straight up fake, so why are we still hearing about it – usually from Facebook mums or your less technologically able friends?

Simply put, it’s the narrative provided to them. While many have accepted social media with the responsibility of double checking the legitimacy of the information out there, others will blindly accept what is out there in front of them as fact and blindly share.

They’ve already heard the constant scaremongering of your internet privacy becoming more threatened than ever, with the keen intent of blaming the companies or people around them. Remember the freak out about Snap Maps? That demonstrates the problem.

Your internet privacy is your own responsibility.

Bad practice demonstrates a bad education on self-cybersecurity, and while the availability of said education could be made more widely available through our education system, the information is still readily available on Google – ready to search to your heart’s content.

So stop being stupid, pour yourself a cuppa and get educated. The internet is a beautiful tool of global connectivity, so stop metaphorically defecating all over it by perpetrating the ugly lies that lie within it.