I’ve seen a few of these going around now, usually with different photos with some sort of mystique:
The implied promise is of something interesting happening once you’ve clicked the like button and typed the number 1. There was one with an attractive girl and a square superimposed over her shoulder doing the rounds a little while ago too. I’ve seen others where the instructions are more explicit in terms of words or phrases to type.
Here’s a good question: what usually happens when you like and comment on something in Facebook? The numbers go up (and you can see they’re already substantial) and it gets posted to your wall. Nothing magical about that and there’s definitely nothing exciting happening for the folks who fall into line behind the hundreds of thousands before them who’ve expectedly followed the instructions.
So what’s the upside for the original poster of the photo? Popularity via likes and comments. There’s a science behind all of this and certainly large volumes of likes, comments and shares is advantageous for perceived popularity. It’s not malicious insofar as it’s not going to serve you malware or charge your credit card, but it will implicitly announce to your followers that you’re gullible!
Oh, and that big freakin’ hole in the ground? It’s the one thing in that image which is actually legit.