Celebrity Death Hoaxes get a New Twist

ByCraig Haley

The popular celebrity death hoax that so often circulates the Internet has taken a strange twist.

Avid social media users will be all too familiar with the celebrity death hoax that falsely asserts a beloved actor, singer or other renowned individual has passed away. Just ask Morgan Freeman, one of the more popular targets to these types of online pranksters.

But the recent, and very real, passing of beloved Sopranos actor James Gandolfini has sparked another type of hoax, the ‘celebrity death is a hoax’ hoax, whereby rumours – often started by fake “news” websites – circulate that falsely claim the recent reports of a celebrity passing away are actually a hoax, adding a new twist to an old prank.

As news broke of the passing of Gandolfini and as major media outlets such as Sky, the BBC and CNN broke the news, counter rumours started by Internet pranksters also started to spread claiming the whole story was a hoax and that online media outlets had been the victim of a fake story. The whole thing ultimately confused plenty of Internet users who simply did not know what to believe.

As usual we always recommend getting your news from reputable media outlets. Mainstream media such as the BBC and CNN will only break stories such as celebrity deaths when they have obtained a certain degree of confirmation that the story is true. Occasionally they do get it wrong, but it doesn’t happen often and retractions are swift.

Never trust unverified Internet rumours or unknown websites for your news. Only refer to reputable websites for this kind of information. Celebrity death hoaxes happen all the time, and now so do celebrity death hoax hoaxes as well, apparently.

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