Since last week’s f8 conference and other updates, Facebook has been plagued with complaints from users, chain messages and now hoaxes.

I noticed another peculiar status update from my friends:

IT IS OFFICIAL. IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON, IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY.

After reading that all I could think of was, “Isn’t it stated on Facebook’s homepage that it’s free and it will always be free?”  So I checked on it, thinking that the policy might have changed but it didn’t.  I also checked on their blog page and still no news of it.  It’s another one of those chain messages that just won’t die.

And aside from these chain messages, there are loads of scams on Facebook.  I remember getting an invite to a “BlackBerry Torch Event” where you need to become a fan of their page, click attend in the invite and refer it to as many people as you can so you can be “one of the 50,000 lucky product testers” and after a month, the BlackBerry Torch will be yours for free.

Another one I got a while back was tagged as “Want to know who’s constantly viewing your profile? Click here.”  A friend of mine tried it and his account was compromised, because all his photos were tagged to all of his friends.  I had to unfriend him to stop the tagging.

Surveys, polls and other schemes are used to get personal information and to hack into your account.  So if there are apps that take you outside Facebook, don’t fall for it, you’re just putting yourself at risk.  Curiosity almost always get the best of us but in this era where one click could result to your whole private life being exposed to the rest of the world, better think twice if you really want to know “who’s your top viewer?”

But there’s one thing that’s not a scam or a hoax, you could now see who unfriended you with Facebook’s Timeline.  To do this, enable the new Timeline, select a year, go to the Friends box, click on “made x new friends”, scroll through the list, if you see an “add friend” box next to a person’s name, you’ll see that you’re no longer friends with that person.  Though many aren’t make a big deal of this regular occurrence of our digital social lives, some people are really sensitive and take it personal when they find out that some unfriended them.  It sucks when someone unfriends you, but come on, there are just some instances that you have to cut the connection.

Not everything on the web is real, so be smart smart about it.  If you are bored or just want to keep yourself busy, don’t just start clicking on every app you see on Facebook, you might end up regretting your actions.  And if you think that an app is suspicious, you can report it to Facebook.  Check your privacy settings to see if your settings changed with the updates.  It’s always better to take precaution especially if your privacy is at stake.