Popular smartphone app WhatsApp, which allows you to message other users on different platforms running the same app at the fraction of the cost of an SMS, has denied sending out any messages stating that it is about to start charging users.

The message reads as follows:

WhatsApp is going to cost us money soon. The only way that it will stay free is if you are a frequent user i.e. you have at least 10 people you are chatting with. To become a frequent user send this message to 10 people who receive it (2 ticks) and your WhatsApp logo should turn Red to indicate a frequent user.

WhatsApp has responded on their blog after they got numerous emails from users of the smartphone app about hoax message doing the round on the instant message application, stating that this is a hoax and there is no truth to it.

Another hoax message has now also started doing the rounds, this time stating that WhatsApp will be shutting down on 28 Jan and if you do not forward the message to your contacts you will be deemed inactive and your account will be deleted withing 48 hours.

WhatsApp will not be shutting down any time soon, nor will they start charging you if you do not forwards messages to your contacts, if they really wanted to contact other WhatsApp users don’t you think they can just simply message you directly?

The past couple of days news has gone viral on social networking sites and blogs about the new range of Julius Malema online accounts that was opened.

Bloggers and twitter users spread the word like a wild fire stating that ANC Youth League President Julius Malema has opened an official Julius Malema blog as well as twitter and Facebook accounts. The news was spread without people trying to verify that if this was in fact real accounts of Julius Malema himself.

On another local blogger’s site he wrote an article about Julius Malema turning to wordpress for his own personal blog, after reading the article I got very suspicious and checked out the whois information of the domain juliusmalema.co.za. The first sniff in the nose I got was with the email address that was used to register the domain with, then there were some other factors in the registration details that convinced me that this was definitely a hoax.

After searching twitter for Julius Malema I came across multiple twitter accounts claiming to be the real Julius Malema.

The ANC Youth League later today came out firing against reports of the Julius Malema twitter account, blog and Facebook account and told news24 that the accounts are fake.

“That’s a fake account and Comrade Malema doesn’t even use Twitter,” said Floyd Shivambu, spokesperson for the ANC Youth League.

Shimvambu said that Julius Malema will not be taking action against the creators of the accounts, and they won’t lodge complaints with social networking sites twitter and Facebook as they have better things to do with their time.

There you have it, looks like Julius Malema isn’t that tech savvy after all.