The social media platform across the internet was flooded with a strange warning, and it is related to the soon-to-be-sworn-in 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump.
The warning, which is more predominant on the social media platform X, claimed that opening a message which said, “TRUMP WAS ARRESTED,” can compromise the security of the user’s bank account.
However, the warning was investigated by Snopes and has been labeled as fake by the fact-finding site. The fake warning first appeared on November 13 and soon became viral across social media platforms. The news is fake, as confirmed by Snopes, because there is no screenshot of the actual message available yet.
The X platform was flooded with posts detailing the scam text message which stated, “Trump Arrested.”
Not sure if y’all got this but this was sent to me:
— KefaPhi (@KefaOnTheGeaux) November 15, 2024
If you get a text that Trump was arrested don’t open it. Somehow it affects your bank account
One user posted:
“If anybody texts you anything that says Donald Trump was arrested, do not open it. It’s a direct link to your bank accounts. That’s what they’re trying to do—get all your bank account information. So let your family know. Send this text to your family.”
A second user posted the following message:
“Fwd: If you get a text that Trump was arrested, don’t open it because it will attack your bank account. Tell all your friends. Just passing it along.”
A third user ominously posted the warning:
“IMPORTANT ALERT! AND SHARE = If you get a text that Trump was arrested, don’t open it because it will attack your contacts, info, and bank account if you have any. Tell all your friends.”
Snopes also recalled a similar hoax that occurred in October 2016, which warned that clicking on a picture of the US President would contaminate the user’s device with a virus.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is tasked with tracking such malicious and fake scams and hacks, has issued no warnings about any such instance of this nature.
In internet parlance, the phenomenon of social media being overwhelmed with such acts of posting identical texts is termed copypasta. This is, again, another instance of copypasta.
Fact-finding site Verify reported details of such online warning posts, and according to John Shier, senior security advisor and research scientist for Sophos, a cybersecurity company, such instances are termed “virus hoaxes.”
Shier stated:
“A lot of these are just basically part of ad networks. And the more people that see them, the more people that potentially click on them, the more revenues can be made by the scammers.”
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