Facebook "Baby Born Amazing Effect" is a Scam

Given the size of the Facebook network, it should be no surprise to any of us that the scammers are trying to target their next victims here, too.

The fine folks at antivirus software company Sophos have been keeping tabs on the latest Facebook scam, "Baby Born Amazing effect". This particular scam is being tracked by Sophos security researcher Graham Cluley who says,

Messages are spreading rapidly across Facebook, as users get tricked into clicking on links claiming to show an amazing video of a big baby being born.

"The messages are spreading with the assistance of a clickjacking scam (sometimes known as likejacking) which means that users do not realize that they are invisibly pressing a "Like" button to pass the message onto their online friends.

Now the real questions:

1. What danger does this pose?
2. How do I get rid of it?

What danger does this pose>

The actual danger to a Facebook user is pretty negligible.

The scam is that by tricking people into "Liking" their video, they're able to artificially inflate their Facebook "Like" count. Real "Like" counts tend to grow pretty slowly, so for someone looking to make a mint in Facebook, garnering a lot of "Likes" can bring in real money fairly quickly.

How do I get rid of it

Here's how:

[See: Image 1]
1. Find the offending message on your Facebook page.
2. Select Remove post and unlike.
[See: Image 2]
3. Go into your profile (top right corner)
4. Select "Activities and Interests"
5. Remove the "Born Baby Amazing Effect" (and anything else you don't like)

[Image 1]


[Image 2]


[N.B. We have to give full credit to Graham Cluley and Sophos for snagging these screenshots from within Facebook so we can help people get rid of this crap.]

Just to reiterate, this particular scam doesn't carry any typical virus payload and doesn't pose any threat to your PC. The only threat is in tricking other friends of yours to do the same thing and ultimately in helping a scammer inflate his or her bank account.

The one caveat here is that if you've made your Facebook personal profile information public, you have shared this information with the scammer, so who know what they're up to.

Put another way: you might want to reconsider what information you're sharing publicly within Facebook.