Don’t Accept Facebook Friend Request From Hacker Jayden K. Smith-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Posts warning Facebook users not to accept a friend request from Jayden K. Smith because he’s a hacker who will immediately gain access to all your contacts’ accounts went viral in July 2017.
The Truth:
A social media post warning people not to accept friend requests from Jayden K. Smith, a known hacker, is the latest version of a false but very persistent warning that resurfaced in July 2017.
A number of different versions of the Jayden K. Smith hacker warning have circulated. In each version, the substance of the warning and the description of the threat are nearly identical. The name of the so-called hacker is the only thing that changes. We investigated similar (false) threats about hackers by the name of Anwar Jitou and Christopher and Jessica Davies. The latest version about Jayden K. Smith is nearly identical:
It’s not clear where the message originated, or why it continues to re-emerge using different names. But the threat described in the post — that the hacker’s computer is connected to Facebook and all of your contacts will be hacked if you accept a friend request — doesn’t appear to be possible. There have never been any credible reports of that happening.
Still, as a general practice, Facebook advises users not to accept friend requests from people that they don’t know in real life.