Here's how to stop those annoying viral hoax messages on Facebook

If you've ever spent any time on Facebook (which, we admit, is likely), then chances are you will have seen a viral message of some description that claims something shocking and tells you to copy and paste it and tell all your friends about it.

They are false, almost 100 per cent of the time, but that doesn't stop their success in making their way around the social network.

This week, a few have resurfaced - with one claiming that Facebook will soon be introducing a $5.99 subscription fee, but crucially you won't have to pay if you simply re-post the message.

It is of course false, but, we hear you think, how can you stop annoying messages popping up on your feed?

Over on Slate, technology journalist Will Oremus has run through all the available options - including "hiding" the post or hitting "unfollow" on the friend's post via the little arrow in the top right corner.

However, as Oremus points out, a relatively new tool brought out by Facebook earlier this year makes it even easier to stop posts like these in their tracks.

First of all, select "report post", then hit "I think it shouldn’t be on Facebook" and then finally choose "it's a false news story".

This will then hide the post from your feed and send feedback to Facebook to help them stop posts like this in future.

Easy.

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