Facebook Scam Exploits Robin Williams’ Death for Clicks

Filling out this survey generates revenue for the scammers, and in the end you won’t see any kind of video for your trouble. The morbidity of listening to a depressed man’s private last words aside, there is no evidence that such a video exists at all.

Nevertheless, it appears the video has already been shared more than 24 million times on Facebook at the time of publishing.

The fake Robin Williams video is just another example of “social engineering,” the technical term for manipulating people into clicking malicious links. Spam like this always accompanies major news items, playing with peoples’ fear, interest and morbid curiosity to generate quick cash.