Facebook Giraffe Update: Anonymous Behind Meme And Planning Attack?
Today’s viral Facebook giraffe riddle game has been sweeping the social network — and along with it, a rumor than Anonymous somehow created the meme in a weird attempt to hack everyone.
The Anonymous Facebook giraffe rumor is one of the dumbest we’ve heard in a long time. After all, Anonymous has recently been linked with pushes for justice in two high profile unpunished alleged rapes — and yet they have a weird plan to get together and hack Facebook through a status meme? About giraffes? Oh, sure, I guess no alleged rapists are going unpunished and no crimes are being covered up — Anonymous has nothing better to do than attack your grandma because she posted a giraffe pic.
This has to be a joke of some description. But we recently spotted this silly rumor in several Facebook groups, claiming something that isn’t even really possible. Allegedly, Anonymous is planning to steal the bank account information as well as clear the hard drives of every Facebook giraffe game status poster:
“Whoah! Just found out that the Giraffe challenge was set up by the hacking group Anonymous. Apparently they’re going to embark on a random ‘cleansing’ program which will wipe out the bank accounts and hard drives of those people who have giraffe profile pics… A few of my mates already had it happen, so glad I cheated now!”
We’ll forgive the misspelling of “whoa” and look at the claim — that Anonymous, which in and of itself is a not-centralized group — would waste time on such a stupid and frankly impossible endeavor.
Yeah, for those of you dense enough to have done that giraffe thing on Facebook, it's an anonymous scam to steal your bank details. Undo it.
— Fucking Chryssalids (@TornadoOfGrohls) October 28, 2013
Can a hacker mess with your banking info? Yes. Can they wipe out your hard drive? Yes. Is the giraffe riddle on Facebook totally harmless? Yes.
Ppl on fb actually think anonymous is going to hack and steal the money from ppl’s bank acts who have some giraffe as a profile pic.
— Val Blair (@Val_Blair) October 28, 2013
‘If you change your profile picture to a giraffe, Anonymous are going to empty your bank account’ – Facebook, the gift that keeps on giving.
— Aron Price (@aronprice) October 28, 2013
Is Anonymous using the Facebook giraffe game to “cleanse” Facebook of… people who like giraffes or games? No. While the game may be annoying and ubiquitous, warning of such a silly and implausible thing is just pointless scaremongering — if you posted the Facebook giraffe game meme, you have nothing to worry about and should not heed this wildly unlikely to occur rumor. (Rumors about malware in the images has also proven false.)
