1、Given the massive coverage of the unexpected demise of Michael Jackson last week, it is perhaps not surprising that hoaxers are attempting to feed the public appetite for celebrity trauma with a slew of fake death stories.First Jeff Goldblum fell off a cliff in New Zealand, then George Clooney was l
2、ost in a plane crash over the Rockies, Star Wars actress Natalie Portman suffered a fatal accident on the set of her latest film, both Harrison Ford and teen star Miley Cyrus drowned when their yachts sank at sea, and 80s singer Rick Astley was found dead in his hotel room. The hoaxes soon spread to
3、 Twitter where hackers broke into accounts belonging to singers Britney Spears and P Diddy and chat show host Ellen DeGeneres.The rumours spread so fast and far across the internet that at one point this week the phrase “jeff goldblum dead“ was in the top five most-searched trends on Google. The Aus
4、tralian Channel 9 News actually declared the Jurassic Park and Independence Day actor to be dead, forcing the New Zealand police to issue a denial. Goldblum took the rumours, which have been circulating on the web for years, in good spirits, giving his own eulogy in a spoof news report.As for how th
5、ese hoaxes have come so thick and fast, media commentators reckon internet users are too readily circulating breaking news without verifying the source of the information. In 2007 a mocked-up CNN page claiming that Paris Hilton had been stabbed received millions of hits. A fake news story disguised
6、as a page from the Guardian reported the death of the former 有了上周关于迈克尔杰克逊意外死亡的大量报道，有骗子用大量名人死亡的假新闻满足公众对名人悲惨遭遇的偏好也许就不足为奇了。先是杰夫戈德布拉姆在新西兰摔下悬崖，然后乔治克鲁尼在落基山脉上空的飞机失事中失踪，星球大战女演员娜塔莉波特曼在拍摄新片时遭受致命意外，哈里森福特和少年明星麦莉赛勒斯都因为游艇在海里沉没而溺水，80 年代的歌星 Rick Astley被发现死在他的宾馆房间里。这些恶搞新闻迅速传播到 Twitter上，那儿的黑客们侵入了歌手小甜甜布兰妮、P Diddy 和谈话节
7、目主持人 Ellen DeGeneres的帐户。这些谣言在网上传播得十分迅速而广泛，以致“杰夫戈德布拉姆死亡”在本周一度名列 Google热门搜索词的前五位。澳大利亚第 9频道的新闻真的宣布了这位曾经出演侏罗纪公园和独立日的演员已死，逼得新西兰警方要站出来辟谣。戈德布拉姆以轻松的心情接受了这个已在网上流传多年的谣言，他在一则恶搞式的新闻报道中为自己写了悼词。为什么这些假新闻源源不断地出现？媒体评论员认为，互联网用户太急于在未核实消息来源的情况下就去传播爆炸性新闻。2007年，一个伪造的关于帕丽斯希尔顿被刺的CNN网页点击量达数百万。一则伪装成卫报页面的假新闻宣称前首相撒切尔夫人去世，并说科学家
8、斯蒂芬霍金为了向她致敬，将用她的声音来说话。披露杰克逊死讯的娱乐网站 TMZ.com称，FakeAWish网站造就了关于克鲁尼的谣传，使他经受了媒体和关切的朋友们的电话轰炸，迫使他的经纪人在之后宣布他还好好地活着。FakeAWish允许用户输入名人的名字来炮制假新闻，而且把那搞得看起来像真正的网页。Twitter帐户看起来特别容易被黑客侵入。prime minister Margaret Thatcherand claimed that as a tribute to her the scientist Stephen Hawking would be speaking in her voic
9、e.Entertainment website TMZ.com, which broke the news of Jacksons death, says the site FakeAWish was responsible for the false Clooney rumours, which forced his publicist to declare him alive and well after being bombarded by calls from media and concerned friends. FakeAWish allows users to type in
10、a celebrity name and produce a fake news story, and looks like a real web page.Twitter accounts seem to be particularly vulnerable to hackers. The microblogging site shut down part of its service at the weekend to correct a “vulnerability“ in its mobile posting system. Britney Spearss account has be
11、en hacked before. TMZ reports that in January pranksters posted a series of vulgar “tweets“ on her account, including a graphic description http:/ of her private parts having “razor-sharp teeth“.Hoax rumours prove so popular that spammers are also getting in on the act, sending out emails offering l
12、inks to “news“ or “pictures“ of dead celebs.But for those wishing to check the latest online gossip, there are websites dedicated to debunking false reports. Snopes and the Museumofhoaxes have an archive of urban legends and how these rumours come about. The latter notes celebrity death hoaxes are n
13、ot just an internet phenomenon though; a news story in the New York Times from 1945 listed a swath of rumours that prominent people had died in the wake of US president 这个微博客网站上周末关闭了部分服务功能，以修复其短信发布系统的一个“漏洞”。布兰妮的帐户以前就被黑过。TMZ 报道说，一月份曾有恶作剧者以她的帐号发布了一系列粗俗的“小道”消息，其中有一幅图描绘她的隐私部位长着“锋利的牙齿”。事实证明这些恶搞的谣传十分受欢迎，以致垃圾邮件发送者也加入了这一行列，他们在发出的邮件中提供了死去的名人的“新闻”或“图片”链接。但对于那些希望核查网上最新八卦的人来说，有一些网站是专门致力于揭穿虚假报道的。Snopes和 Museumofhoaxes有市井传闻的存档，并描述了这些谣言是如何传开的。后者注意到名人死亡的假新闻并不仅仅是互联网上的现象1945 年，纽约时报在一篇新闻报道中列出了紧随美国总统富兰克林罗斯福的去世而出现的一长串名人死亡谣言。Franklin D Roosevelts demise.
