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Cape Town – Celebs including Pink, Adriana Lima and Taraji P. Henson all shared the Instagram post that went viral on Tuesday claiming the social media platform was making "everything you’ve ever posted" public for it to be used against you in court.
Of course, the claims were a hoax, with poor formatting and several grammatical errors giving the game away. Stephanie Otway, brand communications manager at Instagram also confirmed it was all fake news, telling WWD, "There’s no truth to this post."
SEE THE POST HERE:
This isn’t the first time a privacy hoax featured across timelines and made its way far beyond the Instagram, Facebook and Twitterverse. Not one, not two, but a few privacy hoaxes went around in 2015, CBS reports.
The same one reportedly seemed to have made a return in 2016, The Guardian reports. And it sounded a lot like the one Taraji and other celebs just posted.
"Deadline tomorrow !!! Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from tomorrow. Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook’s privacy policy," the post read back in 2016.
Besides a few more errors, it seems nothing has changed.
Many celebs who posted the viral screenshot took it down soon after, before Trevor Noah took to Instagram to post a brand new hoax of his own.
"Don’t forget today start the new day of a hoax people fall for in the internet. A new rule from Instagram that is also old rule and no rule is happening tomorrow where Instagram can use your picture and message for make money and also court case. If you want to stop this you must repost this message which is a real contract and you can tell it is very real because the grammar and speling is perfect.
"Instagram you are a bad boy, don’t use my message for your badness ok," the Daily Show host wrote. "Ok now we are safe my friends. The Instagram demon is dead!"
SEE HIS POST HERE:
