Robin Williams "suicide video" turns out to be Facebook scam

Have you seen this post on Facebook?

Clicking on the link takes you to a page where you are required to "Share" the link and also fill out a survey.

Turns out the whole thing was a scam. From Yahoo Tech:

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 people’s fear, interest, and morbid curiosity to generate quick cash.

“The scammers have no qualms about exploiting the death of a famous actor and comedian to earn their cash, and give no thought whatsoever to the distressed family he must have left behind,” writes security expert and blogger Graham Cluley, who identified the scam on the We Live Security blog by security company ESET.

However, it appears that one of the final videos Williams shot was for 21 year old Vivian Waller of Auckland, New Zealand, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in January.

Meeting Williams was on her 'bucket list' of things to do before dying.