About That Mark Zuckerberg Fake Giveaway Post

After Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he would give away the majority of his Facebook shares to charity, a false Facebook post claiming he was giving away 10% of those shares to users who re-posted a status update.

Zuckerberg Donation

When Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan announced the birth of their daughter Max, they included a pledge to donate 99 percent of their Facebook shares over the course of their lives to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

We will give 99% of our Facebook shares — currently about $45 billion — during our lives to advance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others.

Fake Zuckerberg Giveawy

Only a mere hours after the couple’s announcement, a post began circulating on Facebook which skewed their words and falsely claimed that 10% of the shares would be given to 100 users who re-posted the status update.

THANK YOU, MARK ZUCKERBERG, for your forward-thinking generosity!
And congrats on becoming a dad!

Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he is giving away $45 billion of Facebook stock. What you may not have heard is that he plans to give 10% of it away to people like YOU and ME! All you have to do is copy and paste this message into a post IMMEDIATELY and tag 5-10 of your friends. At midnight PST, Facebook will search through the day’s posts and award 1000 people with $4.5 million EACH as a way of saying thank you for making Facebook such a powerful vehicle for connection and philanthropy.

I hope someone I know gets a piece of the pie–let me know if you do!!!

No such “10%” clause was added to the Zuckerberg-Chan announcement. It isn’t clear what the motive was for creating a blatantly false post, but many Facebook users could be seen sharing the bogus status update “just in case.”

Bottom Line

Mark Zuckerberg did not promise to give away 10% of his Facebook shares to 100 users who reposted a status update.