There’s a rumor around in Facebook that says you can help Haiti’s population, victim of the awful and terrible earthquake, by changing your status in Facebook. The text says something like this:
Owner of Facebook has confirmed that they will send $1 dollar to the rescue fund for the Haiti earthquake disaster for every time this is cut and pasted as a status. You only have to leave it up for one hour. Let’s do it to support thanks!!!
The first thing I’d like to say is that 99.9% of these messages are fake; I don’t really understand what’s the point to send them out and what kind of joy the authors feel when they do this; however, I will tell my comments why I say this is part of those 99.9%.
“Owner of Facebook has confirmed„
The first thing to do when you read this sentence is very simple: check if it’s true; thanks to our big friend Google it’s very simple to do such search and in few seconds you can realize that there is no official place where this news is reported.
The fact that the text says this have no meaning: I can write that the president of US confirmed he will give 1,000,000 $ to every people on Earth, but this doesn’t mean it is true. Also, whenever Facebook announces some change, such as the change of privacy rules as it happened few weeks ago, they send out a big announcement: so why not using the same way for such a big project, if it was true? Why bothering users with an ugly status?
“they will send $1 dollar to the rescue fund for the Haiti„
This is simply crazy: if you take a look to Facebook’s income and number of users, it becomes clear how impossible is to keep this promise. Facebook, in fact, had a 230 millions dollars income last year (income, not profit) and they have over 350 millions users: even if they had no expenses and they would use every little dollar for the cause, they could have problems in case everyone would join.
“Let’s do it to support thanks!„
If you want to support boring of your contacts, this is the best way indeed; but if you really want to support Haiti, take that $1 and donate it to one of the international NGO that are already helping. Even Facebook has an official page about the help to Haiti: http://www.facebook.com/DisasterRelief.
However, the best way, again, is to find a fund and donate there; some examples of funds are Red Cross or Doctors without borders: few dollars may seem nothing, but it’s better than just copying that status on your Wall. If Facebook owner wishes to help, he will do it; with or without your status.