‘No Swearing’ Campaign on Facebook is a Hoax; Mark Zuckerberg Not Seeking End to Cursing, Bans

A viral post on Facebook claims CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seeking a “no swearing campain [sp]” that will be implemented on the social media website starting March 20, 2014, but it’s just a hoax.

“As of march 20, 2014, we at facebook will be launching a no swearing’ campaign. anyone caught using profanity will have their account locked further investigation,” the post reads in full.
Note that there’s spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors, which are hallmarks of hoaxes.

“This due to the new laws issued by our legal department (section 182 P34b) as new advertisers have petitioned for a ‘cleaner’ family friendly social network,” the fake post continues. “If a user continues to use profanity the account will be shut down and a permanent ban will be placed into effect immediately.”

Facebook never released a press statement or made any announcement about swearing on the website.

Facebook users can easily block posts that contain certain curse words or other offensive words.

According to Facebook’s terms and conditions, users have the right to curse but can’t intimidate, issue threats, or make hate speech. 

“You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence,” it reads. It also says, “You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.”

But on Facebook and Twitter, users heavily shared the “no swearing” campaign post.

“The message is apparently just a silly prank. Or it perhaps represents one user’s rather lame attempt to scare people into swearing less on Facebook,” reads a posting from website Hoax-Slayer. “Presumably, if Facebook were to launch such an initiative, it would at least check the spelling and grammar used in any notification messages before sending them. And, despite the profound influence that Facebook may have on some of its users, Facebook is not a government. Therefore, while it may implement terms of use, update policies and expect users to follow a set of community standards, it cannot issue ‘laws’.”