Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
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Title: A fake Facebook event disguised as a math problem has been one of its
top posts for 6 months

Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 23:18:53 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/social-media/a-fake-...

A nearly year-old Facebook event for a "simple maths competition" has been
one of the most viral posts on the platform for six months. The "event"
racked up about 51 million views on Facebook during the first quarter of
2025, according to the company's latest report on "widely viewed content" on
the platform.

That would be an impressive stat for any single post, but it's the second
quarter in a row in which the "maths competition" has nabbed the number two
spot on Meta's list of widely viewed content. It also appeared on last
quarter's report, during which time it received about 64.3 million views,
according to an archived version of the report.

So why is a random Facebook event that's not really an event getting more
than 100 million views? It would seem to be a repackaging of an old
engagement bait tactic. The header image for the event is an image of a piece
of paper with the words "only for genius" followed by a seemingly simple
equation. When shared as a Facebook post, the image is prominently displayed
in a way that may look like a normal image post. The image also has some
striking similarities to other seemingly simple math equations that have been
going viral on Facebook for nearly 15 years.

A look at the event page itself shows that hundreds of thousands of people
have engaged with the event. More than 800,000 people responded to the
supposed July 8, 2024 event. Even now, nearly a year later, the event is
seeing regular comments from Facebook users ΓÇö most of whom are intent on
earnestly explaining how the equation should be solved (or arguing with
others' interpretation). As Slate noted back in 2013, there's something
irresistible about arguing basic arithmetic with strangers on the internet.

What is a bit of a mystery is why this post has gone so viral months after it
was originally posted. I reached out to the account behind the post, a
Nigerian-based creator named Ebuka Peter Ibeh and didn't immediately hear
back. The post seems to be far more successful than any other recent posts
from Ibeh, who has about 25,000 Facebook followers.

In any case, the post offers an interesting window into the kinds of bizarre
content and questionable tactics that still regularly goes mega-viral on
Facebook. Meta recently said it would crack down on creators sharing spammy
posts on Facebook, though it's unclear if this type of engagement bait would
fall under the category of content it's explicitly trying to discourage.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/a-fake-...
math-problem-has-been-one-of-its-top-posts-for-6-months-
231852601.html?src=rss

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