Eddie Murphy Still Not Dead. Where Do All These Celebrity Death Hoaxes Come From?

Eddie Murphy died again, according to the Internet. This time it was in a ski accident in Switzerland with “family and friends.” The ski patrol  airlifted him out, but alas, it looks like he dies on impact.

Like the time something similar happened to Reba McEntire, this story is completely false. As were  similar stories about Bill Cosby, Charlie Sheen, and pretty much every other celebrity under the sun. So why do these celebrity hoaxes keep popping up?
All of these stories come from “Global Associated News,” the kind of website that would make the especially media-savvy pause, but could easily be taken for real. At the bottom of the page is a small piece of fine print that is obviously intended to be passed over by 99% of the people: “FAKE… THIS STORY IS 100% FAKE! this is an entertainment website, and this is a totally fake article based on zero truth and is a complete work of fiction for entertainment purposes!”

“Global Associated News” is the distribution platform for “Fake a Wish,” a website that allows people to plug in a celebrity name, along with a few other details, and generate a fake news story. That’s the “entertainment” part of the website. Founder Rich Hoover talked to E! Online about the site in 2010, and said about what you would think.

“It started off as a practical joke machine seven years ago,” Hoover told E!. “People can just plug in anybody’s name so then they’ll prank their friends. But people don’t read the fine print, and sure enough, it spreads like mad.”

Hoover argued that it was actually good for the celebrities involved – I certainly wouldn’t have thought about Eddie Murphy today otherwise.

Who knows just how many of these are produced a day, but it only takes one to catch on to viral channels and make a boatload of traffic. It’s a pageview machine, taking advantage of the way that truth and falsehoods spread with equal speed through modern social media.

While it seems funny for a moment, it is really a symptom of a dangerous world of new media. Truth and fiction can be equally valuable for a few hours. On a day when a real, wonderful actor actually passed away, it’s hard not to see these sorts of stories as poor taste. But it is, of course, the Internet.

Culled from FORBES