Famous Internet Hoaxes

What Is A Hoax?

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated story made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes. This is how Wikipedia defines a hoax. The difference of a hoax from an urban legend is that a hoax is deliberately fabricated to decieve people.

This is what media literacy is all about. With the rising popularity of social meda websites, it has become easier to spread rumours and hoaxes. There are some examples of famous social media hoaxes below:


Racist Mc Donalds Sign

A highly offensive picture started making the rounds in June last year, featuring what was purported to be a new McDonald’s policy – charging African American customers an additional $1.50 “as an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies.”
This wasn’t the first time this image had surfaced, but it was certainly a PR disaster for the fast food chain. McDonald’s Tweeted about the picture and pointed out the obvious fact that the photo was fake. Despite that, the image still managed to make it into Twitter’s trending topics, and continued to be shared.

Justin Bieber Cancer Hoax

The website called 4chan started this hoax. The hoax started on Oct. 22 with a screenshot of what appeared to be a tweet from Entertainment Tonight's official Twitter account, the tech website writes. The fake tweet announced that Bieber had been "diagnosed with cancer" and "suggested that fans go #BaldforBieber" in support of the pop sensation.

"Pop Star Justin Bieber was diagnosed with cancer earlier this morning. Bieber fans are shaving their heads to show their support," the tweet read.

Before long, tribute videos, Facebook pages and a website -- BaldforBieber.com -- were launched, fueling the claim. Although there were no information about the situtation on Bieber's official twitter account, hundreds of teenage girls shaved their heads in support.

Fake Hurricane Sandy Photos

As Hurricane Sandy descended upon New York, Facebook and Twitter were full of photos showing clouds around the Statue of Liberty, sharks swimming through the streets of Staten Island, scuba divers navigating flooded trains stations, and so on.

Back to the Future Hoax

People of all generations love the "Back to the Future" movies, but nobody can seem to remember the date in the future to which Doc and Marty travel in the second movie. Internet pranksters take advantage of this, and every so often a photoshopped image of the date from the movie will appear on Facebook and Twitter. This happened on June 27 of this year, and then again just two weeks later on July 11. But the real date is October 21, 2015.

Celebrity Death Hoaxes

People periodically spread hoaxes about celebrity death news. In Turkey, fake news about Münir Özkul's death was an example, and there are numerous examples around the world about these fake death news.

Facebook Privacy Statement Hoax

In June, a fake "Facebook Privacy Notice" took the social network by storm, urging users to re-post a message that would allegedly protect their privacy. Facebook members were quick to share the post, and before we knew it, the false claim had overtaken the site. The posting is based on the idea that Facebook’s recent listing as a publicly traded company will negatively affect its users' privacy. But actually, if Facebook ever significantly changed its privacy settings, it would have to notify users about the changes to those terms.