Jayden K Smith, Facebook Hacker: Friendship Request Or Hoax?

If you've got a Facebook profile, you may have come across a new, scary-sounding warning being shared by some of your friends. Like so many of the viral posts that came before it, this one warns you against adding a certain Facebook user – this time named Jayden K. Smith – for fear of having your profile hacked. The question is if this viral warning is legitimate or if it's all just a ruse to get gullible Facebook users to share the post in question.

Let's backtrack for a moment to bring those who may not be familiar with Jayden K. Smith up to speed. There are likely a few variations of this warning circulating around Facebook at the moment, but the general message is the same: if you add Jayden K. Smith to your friends list, you will get hacked. It gets even worse, though, as Mr. Smith apparently has the ability to hack you through your friends – if any of them have added him, you're supposedly just as much at risk. Have a look at the message below:

Please tell all the contacts in your messenger list not to accept Jayden K. Smith friendship request. He 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.

Fortunately for all of us who are pretty easy going about adding new friends on Facebook or Messenger, you have nothing substantial to fear from Jayden K. Smith. This, like all the warning messages that came before it, is just another hoax aiming to get as many shares as possible. This is a fairly classic hoax at this point, with Snopes going into painstaking detail about its origins as a well-circulated – but still just as fake – chain email.

Of course, there are still reasons why you may not want to add someone you don't know to your friends list on Facebook. If, for instance, you make your email or your phone number available to friends on Facebook, that's all an unsavory person would need to significantly increase the amount of spam in your life. Clicking on links shared by these new friends could potentially lead to very real viruses infecting your computer, so all the more reason to stick to adding people you know on Facebook.

But can someone "hack" you merely by adding you or your friends on Facebook? The answer is a resounding "no." You can relax, confident in the knowledge that is all just a ruse, but be sure to pour one out for anyone on Facebook unfortunate enough to be named "Jayden Smith" today, as we have a feeling they're getting all sorts of unpleasant messages at the moment.

SOURCE: Snopes