The most prominent Facebook page in the world appears to have been hacked. On Tuesday, Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s page contained a suspicious posting that urged the company to adopt a “social business” model.
“Let the hacking begin,” the message read. “If Facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a social business the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Ynus described it?”
Hacker Cup
The message continued with an abbreviated URL, http://bit.ly/fs6rT3, which leads to a Wikipedia entry about social business. The entry describes a social business as a “non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social objective,” adding that it’s a “cause-driven business,” with the key objectives being to recoup invested money, not take any dividend, and “achieve one or more social objectives through the operation of the company.”
The final part of the message on Zuckerberg’s page — “What do you think? #hackercup2011” — is assumed to be a reference to Facebook’s Hacker Cup, a competition for programming based on Facebook apps and services. Hidden in the bit.ly link, in a section after the link to Wikipedia, is a note that reads “thanks for the cup,” as well as a link to the Facebook page for the Hacker Cup.
As befits Facebook, the apparently hacked posting garnered more than 1,800 people who indicated they liked the sentiment.
The hacked Facebook page has been removed since it first appeared, although Zuckerberg has another personal page online. Facebook hasn’t commented on the matter.
Some observers are noting that French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s Facebook page was also hacked in the past week, with a message saying he would not run for re-election. Sarkozy replied on his page, in Latin: “No system is infallible.”
Interestingly — or ironically –…