The Facebook Black and White Picture Hoax

Spain´s National Police are warning of the latest hoax which is sweeping social networks, claiming to encourage users to show support for the fight against cancer by changing their profile picture to one that is black and white, accompanied by the phrase “challenge accepted”.

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The internet and technological branch of the force warns that “We have a new (and absurd) #Facebook challenge! This time with the title “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED” showing a photograph in black and white of the user and encouraging ´likes´ by others”.

The police report that despite the good intentions of the victims, no cancer support group is associated with this campaign, nor are any of them collecting money through the challenge, and by definition this is a hoax and masks a series of scripts and strings that can not only filters user information such as email addresses and login details, it can also congest servers, send spam and emails on your behalf, and create false chains and networks where the “bots” are capable of spreading deeper into other contacts and other servers without those victims even being part of the original hoax challenge.

The police also warn that if you have participated in this chain, despite doing so unconsciously and by being supportive, you must now exercise extreme caution to avoid being part of this deception.