It is hoax: Facebook not charging any monthly fees

Facebook will not charge $2.99 per month from November 1 as claimed by an article in National Report, which turns out fake. The report on the satirical website, read that the social networking site has decided to launch new monthly service plan from November 1st of this year.

Facebook is not charging any monthly fee as claimed (later disclaimed) by a hoax news website National Reporter. “The social media giant says they will start charging members $2.99/mo to use the services that the site has to offer,” said the report. Article also quoted some fake statements from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

National report claimed the monthly fee plan citing an interview with CNN and Facebook spokesperson Paul Horner. The site noted Facebook spokesperson said that times are tight, and Facebook ads are not churning as much profit as expected. “There’s so many pictures of cats, and all of those costs add up, we just can’t foot the bill any longer.”

In its disclaimer, National reports mentioned that it is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, sometimes in semi-real or wholly fictitious ways. It also read that every news article on the website is fiction and fake news. Also, these news pieces do not relate with the truth in any way. However, users on Twitter and Facebook did not take the satire light heartedly and fumed over the fictional report.

The website said in an article few months ago that satire does not need to be humorous, and neither this post was meant to be. It further noted that people in the modern world should understand and evolve themselves to verify information rather than just believing it. Within the report it was mentioned that baseless information are conveyed by the ACTUAL news sources every day, which has let the country into serious divide.

The recent hoax by National Report is just the latest to plethora of fake news of Facebook monthly charge circulating for several years. The report even stated that poor users can skip paying the monthly fee by posting, ‘I AM POOR FACEBOOK PLEASE WAVE MY MONTHLY FEE.’

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Source: TechNews, Sept. 23, 2014.