In April 2010 there was an event on Facebook that attracted more then 60,000 RSVPs.

It wasn’t a concert, or a sale, or a protest.

It was what appeared to be a house party, started by an unassuming looking young woman named Kate.

It created not only the 60,000 responses, but a huge variety of other facebook groups – “Is going to try to get with Kate at Kate’s Party”, “We met at Kate’s Party”, “Kate’s party would have gone off” and “Osama Bin Laden is at Kate’s Party”.

And it turns out it was all a hoax – Adelaide man, Dave Thorne, created the event to highlight the failings of Facebook privacy settings.

It became a huge sign of how quickly information can be spread by social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.

Currently there is another event that has surpassed Kate’s house party in terms of guests.

As of March 14, there are over 100,000 people who have responded to Jess Cooper’s 16th open house party.

The event includes an address and phone number, which the party event says is Jess Coopers’.

Facebook took down the page for Kate’s party after it reached 60,000 guests, and it was confirmed to be a hoax.

It is not yet known whether this new event is another hoax, or a powerful warning to always be careful of privacy settings.

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About the author

Maddison Kennedy