Claim: Facebook will be closing down for good on 15 March 2013.
Examples:
[Weekly World News, January 2011]
Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will be shut down in March. Managing the site has become too stressful.
"Facebook has gotten out of control," said Zuckerberg in a press conference outside his Palo Alto office, "and the stress of managing this company has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness."
[Rest of article here.]
[Collected via e-mail, March 2011]
Dear Facebook Members,
Facebook is suppose to be closing down March 15th it has recently becoming very overpopulated. There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becoming very slow. Records show that the reason is that there are many active Facebook members and, on the other side, many new Facebook members.
We will be sending this message around to see if members are active or not. If you are active please send to at least 15 other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are still active. *Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks will be deleted without hesitation to create more space.*
Send this message to all your friends and to show me that your still active and you will not be deleted.
Founder of Facebook,
Mark Zuckerberg.
[Collected via e-mail, November 2012]
HI,This message is from the creator of Facebook and it tells you a little bit about what is going to happen to Facebook on the 15th of March. Please don't ecomingsend this back to the person you recieved it from.
DearFacebook members, Facebook is supposed to closing down March 15 th. because it is becoming very overpopulated. There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becomming very slow. Records shows that there are many active Facebook members and also new members. We will be sending this message around are active please send to 15 others users using copy + paste to show that you are still active.*Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks will be deleted without hesitations to make more space. Send this message to all of your Friends to show that you are still active and you will not be deleted.
Founder of Facebook.
Remember to send this to 15 other people so your account won't be deleted. Chat Conversation End
Variations: A March 2011 version (second example quoted above) combined the "Facebook is closing on March 15" hoax with the "Free online service is becoming overloaded, so you need to forward this message to 15 of your friends" leg-pull that has been around (in various forms naming various targets) since 2000.
Origins: The claim that some free web-based service is going to begin a mass deletion of accounts, start charging for access, or shut down entirely in the near future is a common Internet hoax, and this report that Facebook will be closed down in March 2013 because (according to the 2012 version of the hoax) "managing the site has become too stressful" is more of the same.
This item originated as an article published on 8 January 2011 on the Weekly World News (WWN) web site, the online successor to the popular entertainment tabloid, whose stock in trade is fantastically fictional headlines stories such as "Alien Spaceships to Attack Earth in 2011" and "George Clooney Running for President."
A note posted to Facebook on 9 January 2011 by that company observed, "We didn't get the memo about shutting down, so we'll keep working away like always. We aren't going anywhere; we're just getting started."
The original Weekly World News article stated that Facebook would be shutting down on 15 March 2011. As that date passed with no Facebook closure, WWN altered its article to identify 15 March 2012 as the date of the supposed end of Facebook and republished it on 20 October 2011. On 10 September 2012 WWN again updated its article, that time to identify 15 March 2013 as the date Facebook would be closing its doors.
