The Christmas season is supposed to bring with it joy and merriment.
But amongst the catalog of (real) celebrity engagements and other happy announcements over recent days, there have also been threads of celebrity death hoaxes circulate the more febrile corners of the World Wide Web. Owen Wilson, Charlie Sheen, Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy are among the list of stars to have been killed off in cyber space – with the whole reports claim they had disastrously died in snowboarding accidents.
Morgan Freeman and former pop star Aaron Carter have also been the subject of new online death rum ours.
Hollywood actor Wilson, 42, was reported to have died in a skiing accident today in a doubtfully posted article title ‘Global Associated News’.
The report claimed Wilson had snowboarded into a tree and died in Zermatt; Switzerland. It was then quickly picked up and approved around the net via social networking sites counting Twitter.
Another trick by the same website earlier claimed Charlie Sheen, 45, died on Boxing Day (December 26) after a snowboarding accident, also in Switzerland. ‘Sheen lost organize of his snowboard and struck a tree at a high rate of speed,’ the false report claimed.
‘Sheen was air lifted by ski patrol teams to a local hospital, however, it is believed that the actor died right away from the crash of the crash,’ it added. His ex-wife Denise Richards tweeted to ‘kill off’ the hoax, so to speak, writing on Twitter: ‘The rumor about Charlie Sheen is not true. He is alive and on his way over to see his daughters.’
Earlier in the month, Morgan Freeman, 73, was killed off after Twitter user (@originalcjizzle) retweeted to a posting by news network CNN.It read: ‘@originalcjizzle tweeted: RT @CNN: Breaking News: actor Morgan Freeman has passed away in his Burbank home<< wow legendary actor #RIPmorganfreeman.
Clearly, using the name of a legitimate new channel within the Twitter post succeeded in getting the fake death notice to go viral.CNN issued a strong response, tweeting: ‘CNN did not report Morgan Freeman death. Rumor is false. CNN will aggressively investigate this hoax. ‘Former pop star Aaron Carter was another victim of the Christmas weekend celebrity death hoax.
Twitter hysteria was caused when it was reported the 23-year-old had died of a drug overdose.
But putting the rumors to bed, Aaron tweeted: ‘This is the real Aaron Carter I know there’s a Hoax going Around, but I’m Here, Alive & Well. At the complex working on my mind & soul.’