(ABC 6 News) – It’s taken some time, but Facebook has begun flagging a viral scam responsible for tricking people into sharing a post that does absolutely nothing but help hackers and scammers.

You’ve no doubt come across posts of “OMG IT WORKED” from friends. The posts claim that
copying and pasting the text into a post of your own, it will prevent Facebook from accessing
your information, get rid of ads, and see more posts from more of your friends.

This week, Facebook began flagging or tagging some of those posts as “False Information”.
Those posts are no longer visible unless the user specifically clicks on “see post”.

Of course, copying and pasting the text will do nothing. Some of the posts claim a local television
station even reported on it.

Here’s how the scam works:

By posting the exact text, hackers can search Facebook for keywords such as “OMG it worked”,
or “Yessssss”. Searches then return all Facebook users who have posted the text publicly.

Scammers can then target those users in some ways including cloning their accounts and
sending fake friend requests to all of their friends.

Some of the posts will attract comments from scammers offering to remove malware and return
accounts to victims. This also is false. They’ll either ask for money upfront, or send links to
install malware on the user’s computers.

They may also send messages, emails, and texts to the posters and their friends that look like a
Facebook login.

In a nutshell, scammers spot gullible Facebook users who’ll fall for tricks like this and figure
they’ll be an easy mark.

The hope is that by flagging these posts as “false information” it should cut down on the number
of people clicking and sharing the posts.

The question is: “Why did it take so long for Facebook to flag the posts?”

They’ve been around since at least 2012 and many other posts get flagged every day with the
same “false information” tag.

I reached out to Facebook but have not received a response at this time.