Warning: Johnny Depp Death Video
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Twitter, phishing, Search, Blog, Spyware, Security, Spam, Internet on
I’ve been all over the Johnny Depp is NOT dead story this weekend like a nasty rash. Seriously, how this could have spread quite so quickly is beyond me. It has run broad as well as deep, which is unusual for a Twitter hoax. However, it does serve to demonstrate not only how important Twitter is becoming as a breaking news source but also how badly things can go wrong if you treat Twitter Trending Topics as gospel instead of Chinese Whispers.
It only took me a few minutes of Googling to dig up the fact that the supposed car crash was actually an old hoax resurrected from 2004, and it wasn’t a very good one back then to be honest. The lazy hoaxer just pasted an image over an existing CNN news story page but couldn’t be arsed to remove the original text. So one minute it was talking about Depp in an alcohol fuelled death crash and the next about some British Navy types having a lucky escape from a caving accident. Sigh.
Sure, I had the advantage of being an online news guy so am blessed with one of those ‘I’ve heard that somewhere before’ kind of memories which comes with the territory. So when my wife woke me up and was all “the man I love is dead” on my ass I knew it was a hoax. Obviously I also knew my marriage was not, perhaps, as secure as I had thought but that’s another story.
What else I knew, once I’d done my investigating and written it up in the forlorn hope it might help stem the tide of misinformed tweets (it didn’t) was that it wouldn’t be long before the RIP Johnny Depp malware hit the web. Another forlorn hope that a security journalist warning the public to be alert might stop link clicking idiots doing just that. Still, the news stories went out yesterday.
Today the inevitable has happened and Graham Cluley over at Sophos has the video evidence of malware scammers using the web to direct people expecting to find video footage and news of the Johnny Depp death crash to something even nastier. Part of me wants to say that look, if you are searching for video footage of a celebrity perishing in a car crash then you deserve everything the malware scumbags throw at you. But then again, I’ve seen how devoted Depp fans react to the news that their idol may be dead (waves at wife across the office) and know that logic can often be thrown out of the window in an attempt to get at the truth.
To save you the trouble, here is the truth:
Depp did not die in a car crash in 2004 or 2010 and there is no video footage as a result.
Twitter should not be treated like News at Ten, but more as a load of people down the pub - and you wouldn’t necessarily believe Bob at eleven when he tells you that Gordon Brown has resigned over a sex scandal and he knows it is true because Fred told him and he heard it from the barman. Would you?
Rated: 60% (2 votes)
Loading ...Pingback by - January 25, 2010 on 11:28 am
[…] Warning: Johnny Depp Death Video - IT ProI’ve been all over the Johnny Depp is NOT dead story this weekend like a nasty rash. Seriously, how this could have spread quite so quickly is beyond me. It has run broad as well as deep, which is unusual for a Twitter hoax. However, it does serve […]
Comment by Angela - January 25, 2010 on 12:34 pm
LOL, so true. Thats why twitter is really not the best place for gossip or rumors.
Pingback by - January 25, 2010 on 10:38 pm
[…] IT PRO: Blogs: Davey Winder: Warning: Johnny Depp Death Video www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/daveyw/2010/01/25/warning-johnny-depp-death-video – view page – cached , I’ve been all over the Johnny Depp is NOT dead story this weekend like a nasty rash. Seriously, how this could have spread quite so quickly is beyond me. It […]
Pingback by - January 25, 2010 on 11:27 pm
[…] Warning: Johnny Depp Death Video - IT ProI’ve been all over the Johnny Depp is NOT dead story this weekend like a nasty rash. Seriously, how this could have spread quite so quickly is beyond me. It has run broad as well as deep, which is unusual for a Twitter hoax. However, it does serve […]
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