With Facebook comes stupid Facebook hoaxes – it’s inevitable. There are over 1 billion monthly active users on the social network, and a sample size that large is bound to include plenty of twits. No, you’re not going to win a share of this dude’s lottery prize if you share his photo. You’re also not going to help save this baby born with its heart on the outside if you like a page. Get it together, people.

But a new hoax making the rounds may just be the dumbest thing to hit the Facebook community in quite some time – maybe ever.

The viral status suggests that at the end of February, Facebook will be shutting down for three whole days for some sort of site maintenance.

According to Sophos Naked Security blog, the hoax first appeared in French and has morphed into English.

Here’s what the message looks like (or at least some form of this):

WARNING!! Facebook will be closed for maintenance from February 29th to 31st!! Facebook wants YOU to Share this message with at least 15 of your friends for the best chance of alerting everyone. Many people will try to log in from February 29 to 31, just to find the site closed down for those days with no warning

Facebook has never and will never go down for three days of site maintenance. Plus, Facebook definitely won’t go down from February 29th to February 31st because those dates don’t exist.

In 2013, February ends on the 28th. In a few years there will be a February 29th, but there will never, ever be a February 30th or 31st (at least in our modern calendar).

Use your noggins and stop spreading this stuff. Pretty please?