Facebook hacked, identity stolen

This is not about FB page cloning where someone tries to coerse your friends to again friend you this time to a cloned account, this is personal! The following details how facebook and your interaction with it could lead you into a whole world of pain.

We have all done it, the temptation is too great, the question is too simple, or maybe you simply like your friends answer . . . . . .

What food would you never eat?
What was your first concert?
One of these has to go?
What would your age be if reversed?
Your birth month determines which celebrity . . . .?

You or somebody you know has been hacked, if it wasn't a concerted external effort or simple clone it almost certainly was the fault of the hacked person :-( Following is a VERY long article reproduced here in full in case it should disappear or you cannot access facebook to view it. At the end of the article I have provided a link to the original post so you can give full credit to them if you wish.

Facebook is a scary place!

In 2015 160,000 Facebook accounts were compromised daily. 120 million accounts on the platform were fake by the end of 2020.

How account hacking works on Facebook:

You see a fun little question pop up in your facebook feed that people answer in the comments. This isn't a question from one of your facebook friends, it's from a public account, maybe an account supposedly belonging to a radio station, but not one in your part of the country where you would definitely recognise the station. Maybe it's from a public account called something cute like "just for laughs" or "no biggie" or "memory lane". Maybe a facebook friend of yours has already answered the question. It seems harmless and trivial: "What food would you never eat?" "What was the first concert you went to?"
Because of the way facebooks' algorithm is set up, answering this question or just giving the post a like means facebook will show you more content by this facebook poster and more content by other similar posters. You see more and more little quizzes by facebook accounts who are not your actual friends.
Also because of the way the algorithm is set up, your actual facebook friends can see the post you responded to and your answer to the little question. If they respond to your comment or like your comment, or answer the question themselves, they also begin to see more little quiz questions from this poster and more similar facebook accounts with other little questions.
Some of these questions really are probably harmless, but the more you answer, the more you see and sooner or later you slip up and answer one or more that help a data miner begin putting together pieces of information that help them steal your identity and potentially get into your bank accounts.

"One of these has to go" with a list of four types of candy bars isn't helpful to anyone, but the more you get used to answering questions the less carefully you scrutinize the questions. One day you answer one that gives someone your birth year: "how old would you be if the digits of your age were reversed". A week later you have forgotten about that but the information has been harvested and filed away and you answer another question that gives them your month of birth: "your birth month determines which celebrity you marry, are you happy?" with a bunch of pictures of famous people laid out in a calendar grid. Some questions are straight up complete answers to common security questions: maiden names, grandparents' names, where you vacationed as a kid, what was your first car, what was your first pets name, what was the name of your primary school.

When the data miner pretending to be a harmless fun facebook account or radio station has enough pieces to the puzzle put together they can either get into your bank account, sell your information to someone else who wants to get into your bank account or remotely lock your accounts or take over your whole computer or phone and force you to pay a ransom to get access back. They can impersonate you and steal your tax refund. They can commit social security fraud pretending to be you and disappear with the cheque while you are left to prove it wasn't you.
The worst thing about these social media predators is that the more you comment on these information gathering quizzes, even if you just comment to tell a friend that they have potentially given away the answer to their own security question, the more they spread. All your facebook friends will see more of these quizzes as a result of your comment and be more likely to comment themselves, and sooner or later one of them will give away important information, even if you never do.
So DO NOT COMMENT. Not even to the ones that really don't share any important information. They post many innocuous questions for every one that actually gathers information, but even the seemingly benign ones help them figure out what style of questions generate the most responses, work the algorithm to get them on more peoples facebook feeds and lull you into a false sense of security that this is good clean fun. Do not give a thumbs up or an angry face. If you see a friend post in response to one, talk to them in person about how these work, or call them, or send them a private message, but don't reply back to their comment on the actual post. That just helps these things spread.