Sex Education – Picture: Netflix
Another day and another fake viral post that incorrectly states that Sex Education season 3 is coming to Netflix in October 2021 is spreading like wildfire across the internet. Unfortunetely, while it could come to Netflix in October 2021, no official date has been provided for the return just yet.
The post in question comes from Netflix Updates who operates primarily on Facebook (albeit through the tag Netflix Diaries) and Twitter. They mostly post fan pictures of shows but occasionally they’ve been known to mock up a poster with dates to claim a show is coming out soon.
Here’s the current offending fake news post which states that season 3 is due out on Netflix in October 2021. The post is notably fake because it’s using the same assets from season 2 but that doesn’t seem to be stopping some from thinking it’s real.
Release date, cast, trailer and more. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻https://t.co/p1vkyZYhQP
— Netflix Updates. (@NetflxUpdates) June 3, 2021
They then go on to link to a fellow Netflix fansite, NetflixLife, ran by Fansided. Specifically, they link to their big season 3 preview for Sex Education. In that preview, they don’t mention a specific release date rather saying:
“We’re anticipating this show could be back for season 3 as early as August or September and arrive as late as October 2021.”
What’s going on here then? Well, firstly it’s posted with the intention of going viral. However, collecting imaginary internet points is made even sweeter if you can make a few pennies too. That’s what’s happening in this instance. If you look at the aforementioned NetflixLife link, there’s a small tag added to the end. That allows that person to earn some money for the traffic that is pushed through to that site. This is commonly known as an affiliate scheme.
What they’re hoping is that this goes viral enough to generate enough traffic through to that link which will then get them some money.
To be clear, we do not blame NetflixLife here but we have reached out to them for comment.
The last fake post to go viral from this account was back in February 2021 where Netflix themselves went onto comment. The poster teased a November 2021 release date. That Tweet is embedded below. Of course, the date for that show, You season 3, has yet to be confirmed as of June 2021. Again, this isn’t an unrealistic timeline, but still not yet confirmed by Netflix.
That Tweet garnered close to 200,000 likes.
LOVE this fan art!
— Netflix (@netflix) February 9, 2021
Of course, you could argue this is all harmless fun and nobody gets hurt but fake news is rife in entertainment news and it’s worth trying to combat it whenever you see it. We’d recommend reading up on how to avoid getting caught out by real and fake news through resources like this.
We’ll keep you posted when we do learn more about when Sex Education season 3 is set to come to Netflix right here on What’s on Netflix.