GREENSBORO N.C. - There's a warning being spread around Facebook about accepting friend requests from strangers. It reads: "Please tell all the contacts in your messenger list not to accept friendship request from Andrea Wilson. She is a hacker and has the system connected to your Facebook account. If one of your contacts accepts it, you will also be hacked, so make sure that all your friends know it."
Now that sounds scary, but it's not true. Snopes, Hoax Slayer and Truth or Fiction have all ruled this one false because there "have never been any credible reports of hackers being able to access their victims accounts through an accepted friend request."
You see people can get hacked on Facebook just not like that. Here's how it actually goes down: Once that stranger is your friend, then they might send you a private message with some kind of link for you to click on. For example, a popular scheme going around is where someone sends you what appears to be a YouTube video with your name on it, and hundreds of thousands of views. Computer expert Kent Meeker says clicking the link could put Malware on your computer.
"Malware is someone trying to remotely access your machine to gather information from you," Meeker said.
So don't click on any links from a stranger on Facebook. But just accepting their friend request won't hack your computer. Although, it does mean that someone you don't know can lurk around looking at pictures of your kid's birthday party and your cat. And that's just creepy no matter how you slice it.