Angelina Jolie Latest Victim of Celebrity Death Hoax
Another news of a celebrity who committed suicide circulated on the Internet, but just like some celebrity "suicide" reported before, this one also turned out to be a hoax. And the latest fake death news victim? Angelina Jolie.
On Thursday, rumors from bogus websites claimed that Jolie committed suicide in a CNN video. The fake news with the title, "CNN Video Footage: Angelina Jolie Says Goodbye to Her Fans and Brad Pitt Before Doing This Suicidal," has become viral on social media, specifically on Facebook. At first, the story seems to be real, but a suspicious link leads to the post.
It was later determined that the same website also spread false death news on other celebrities such as Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Vin Diesel, Jaden Smith, and John Cena in 2016.
Inquisitr reported that the website used the video and other fake stories as click bait in order to give it access to post on a person's Facebook page. Clicking the video might also permit the website to get your social media and other personal information.
Some of the top Google searches on that day include "Angelina Jolie dead, Angelina Jolie suicide, and "Angelina Jolie Says Goodbye." This proves that the post has become viral and that many people are interested in knowing if the news was true or not.
A website that found the said story fake, Snopes, reveals how hoax websites work.
"This death hoax generator site publishes stories under a wide range of URLs using various Facebook apps. While the sources differ from hoax to hoax, they all attempt to perpetrate the same scam: A salacious Facebook post, typically claiming that someone famous has passed away, is used to lure users into giving a scammy app permission to view and/or post to their Facebook page. This ensures that the scam circulates on social media and allows the site to scrape users' personal information."
It is still possible that other famous personalities would become victims of hoax websites in the near future, and this might not end until social media sites do something to prevent or control the circulation of fake celebrity death rumors on the Internet.