Why do people write Copy and paste this message – don’t share it?
When you share a post on Facebook all additional shares lead back to one original unique post. Therefore if the “Facebook Police” (Facebook management, law enforcement etc.) want to remove the post from Facebook they simply delete one original entry and all other entries are gone in a matter of seconds. This is a good security feature and one that most legitimate users want to have. You want Facebook to be able to pull offensive material from the internet quickly. When you copy and paste a message, each instance of the post is unique and has to be removed individually. Once that post gets momentum, it would take a long time to remove every single occurrence. This would obviously take much more time than we might want as a society.
Additionally, when you copy and paste such messages to your wall, you make yourself vulnerable to other advertising or targeted attacks. It is relatively easy to use Google to search the word string in question. Then everyone found on Facebook with that word string is sensitive to puppies, babies, seniors, political agendas, medical issues, causes etc. Now that a bad guy knows what you are passionate about, it is easier to target you for a scam via social media, email or phone contact. Why make yourself a target for unknown criminals likely from another country?
It is unlikely that a true friend will “unfriend” you if you don’t “copy and paste”.