We have all seen it while scrolling Facebook, the “To regain friends and get rid of ads” posts.  While there are plenty of predators who want to scam you on Facebook and other forms of social media, these aren’t really a scam – but according to Facebook, they are a hoax.

The post claims that by simply reposting the statement it will magically let you see more of your friend’s content and get rid of ads.  Facebook says ALL of these claims are FALSE.

According to Facebook:

So, to clear things up: No, Facebook does not set a limit on the number of people whose posts are shown in your News Feed.

“The idea that News Feed only shows you posts from a set number of friends is a myth,” says Ramya Sethuraman, a product manager who works on ranking. “The goal of News Feed is to show you the posts that matter to you so that you have an enjoyable experience. If we somehow blocked you from seeing content from everyone but a small set of your friends, odds are you wouldn’t return.”

However, the persistence of the “26 friends” myth is understandable.

That’s because the posts in your News Feed are ranked in the order we believe you’ll be most interested in seeing them. […] The News Feed algorithms prioritize posts that are predicted to spark conversations among people, whether because of format — for example, live videos tend to lead to more discussions than regular videos — or because the posts were shared by people, groups or Pages you interact with frequently.

Because of this, it’s possible that you’ll see content from a similar list of posters at the top of your News Feed, which can make the “26 friends” idea seem plausible. If you scroll down, though, you’re likely to see posts from an even wider group of people.

Similarly, while leaving a single comment on a post won’t suddenly “unblock” you from showing up in your friends’ Feed (because there’s no arbitrary limit in the first place), there’s a grain of truth here, too. If you frequently trade comments with a friend, their posts are likely to be shown higher in your News Feed than posts from someone you never interact with.