The rumors that Unfriended is a true story became so pervasive, the fact-checking website Snopes had to step in to definitively declare the rumors false: Unfriended is a work of fiction.

"This movie is based on a long-time idea of my fellow producer Timur Bekmambetov, with whom I’ve worked with for almost five years," screenwriter Nelson Greaves told Daily Dot in 2015. "'We should make a movie that’s just on the computer,' he says. Everyone told him he was crazy, but it made sense to me."

Nelson went on: "I’ve literally seen him on set yell 'Action!' while shooting a scene, and as soon as he cuts, he looks down at his computer, where he has another set of people on Skype, to participate in another meeting. He does this while he shoots a movie.

“One night, we were sitting in an office, throwing ideas around, and it suddenly clicked for me. Oh my gosh, what if this were a horror movie? The idea to use the containment of the computer and the limitations to horrific effect suddenly made sense to me.”

As Snopes speculates, the fact that MTV uploaded a trailer for the film to YouTube may have confused viewers, since MTV is known for its reality programming.