A recent viral Facebook post claims that a woman who has been pregnant for 13 months is in desperate need of prayers (i.e., likes and shares) as she undergoes surgery in the coming weeks.
The post’s message reads as follows:
A MUST READ!!! ‘This is a photo of my wife. She has been pregnant for 13 months now and yet to deliver. She is about to be operated because the child is not coming out. Pls post this for me, I need your prayers, I don’t want my wife or baby to die. We have been barren for 6 years and this is supposed to be our first child. PLEASE PRAY FOR HER’. From Mr. Ben – South Africa. Now we pray, the operation will be successful and Mr. Ben’s wife & baby will be alive. To every one that reads this, type ‘Amen’ below and share this post if you wish her safe delivery. Don’t ignore, they need your prayers.
This post is yet another “like-farming” hoax designed to drive up shares, likes and comments for nefarious purposes.
According to Hoax-Slayer, the photo (the featured image here is unrelated) that accompanies the post is of a woman in a Haitian hospital that was taken in March 2009. It is from this news report on a Port-au-Prince maternity ward. The actual caption for the photo reads:
A nurse measures the belly of a woman at the maternity ward Cite Soleil’s hospital in Port-au-Prince, Wednesday, March 4 [2009]. Haiti has the highest maternal death rate in the Western Hemisphere, according to the United Nations.
Like-farming scams are designed to use the power of viral posts on social media to drive attention to a certain page or website, which increases traffic and exposure, and thus, value. After a like-farming strategy is successful, the pages are often scrubbed of content and sold to the highest bidder with its built-in audience.
They are also used by pages seeking to increase their traffic for their own purposes, but in both cases, they’re blatant lies designed to game he sharing system. If you see this post shared on your Facebook timeline, do the responsible thing and hit the share buttons on the left.
“Wife Pregnant For 13 Months Doesn’t Need Your Likes And Shares” is part of SocialNewsDaily’s “Hoaxed” series which debunks viral social media hoaxes. Hit the share buttons on the left, or check out more from the series in the “Social Communities” tab up top.
[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
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