This hilarious but totally bogus story — about a mutant zombie strain of the swine flu and designed to look like a legit BBC News story — is making quite the splash on Twitter. The link to the story has been retweeted (in other words, shared on user’s Twitter feeds), at last check, 720 times, according to Tweetmeme, a website designed to aggregate which links are getting the most play on Twitter at any given moment. Even more interesting is that the story — which is undoubtedly a complete fake as it makes claims like a Netherlands boy dying and then rising from the dead and lunging at his mother, among other crazy things — is listed on Tweetmeme’s homepage with this very misleading and official-looking moniker: BBC NEWS | Europe | EU quarantines London in swine flu panic. And it’s right alongside actually legit BBC News stories, like this: BBC News | Health | What scientists know about swine flu, which is also being retweeted but not nearly as much. Shouldn’t someone at Tweetmeme catch the potential panic such a legit-but-bogus link could incite?
If you look at what the Twitter community is saying when posting the fake link, it’s a mixed bag. Everything from tongue-in-cheek takes — "OMG! Swine flu virus has mutation…and it’s now creating zombies!" says user redrisker — to the dismissive: "Great example about trust and checking sources," Tweeted user MeManders.
Another interesting dimension to this story is the URL that’s used for the hoax. Just look at it: http://bouncewith.me.uk/europe/8027043.htm. Clearly, you’re not being directed to the BBC News website. But it’s important to remember that, on Twitter at least, a good portion of the URLs posted are turned into "short links," which save space. So users rarely look at what they’re clicking on anymore — until they get to the destination. Checking the URL, and whether it redirected to a legit website, may or may not happen.
In this case, thankfully, most users seem to get the fact that the story is a joke, but we do seem to have the ideal forum for a potential War of the Worlds-like event. And how could this affect entertainment news? (For instance, could the Jaleel White suicide rumor from a few years back have gone nuts on Twitter? Hehe.) Does this silly little, yet entertaining, communication application have the potential to spread panic? I surely think so, especially since it’s so unpoliced. But what say you, PopWatchers?
Comments (1-30) of 39 Add your comment
its true, the zombies will come, and i will kill them!
Zombies are gana happen the swine flu is gana kill people and people are gana turn in to zombies and people are going to die ok swine is the first stage Gawd Dayum if u need help in pepairing send me a message brycer000@yahoo.com
sad to see that Twitter being like this, I thought it be better then that, but well see what happen
A fake story like this can only gain credence if people are dumb enough to believe it without properly checking sources…
…so to answer your question, YES, I’m worried about Twitter can cause some sort of real panic down the line. I just believe that says less about the technology and more about how dumb and lazy some people can be.
Never disbelieve the zombiepocalypse.
If you’re concerned you may already be a Zombie, and want to run some diagnostics on yourself, check out AmIaZombie.com. I guarantee the results are 100% legitimate.
haha they totally caught me.
i thought the URL was weird
but wen i got to the page i
reallllly thought it was legit.
i called my bf and my mom in a panic.
i was gonna buy a shotgun this weekend. lolol. this is a great hoax.
A friend sent a direct message of this to me. I looked this up and destroyed his fantasy.
…but I have to think about whether this could be a conspiracy theory to keep average citizens in the dark about certain issues the higher-ups believe we “aren’t ready for”.
Well, the “news story” had my hopes up. If fact, about a month ago a friend of mine asked my biology teacher if this could happen and the teacher said no. We both got our hopes up, then had them crushed again…
Guess we’ll have to wait for a real zombie virus. Heh. ;3
Haha, I got totally duped by this, and the funnier part is I told my friends and they believed me. I feel like such a dork. THat is hella convincing though, I saw it on reddit though, not twitter
What a jackass move. You got alot of people I know with this prank. What if something bad happened and People really took it too fare and some killed someone cuase they thought they had swine flue …Think first.
This is real. I don’t care what anybody says, I’ve been waiting for this for years and I refuse to accept that it’s fake. I’m going into survival mode and you all should too! The dead will walk!!! The dead will walk!!! Get your shotguns ready cause we’re gonna kill the elderly- I mean zombies, we’re gonna kill the zombies.
hot sexy photos…
http://watchcelebrity.com/
I think it’s really ridiculous that people would actually post things like that. It may seem like a joke but it could really put people in a panic. I’m all for practical joke but not when it comes to a serious and deadly issue such as swine flu. I think people need to know where to draw the line!
I think if this sort of thing happens enough out of twitter, then it will end up just being expected
this is a well disguised and frankly clever prank. and allthough i want to believe seriously nobody will get hurt from it untill a “zombie” knocks on the front door. still my dreams of shooting it out against the army of undead are crushed…tear…*~FAIL~*
teste
We are filming a movie in TN. Last Sunday we called for extras to come out to play zombies. 550 showed up! There was a lot of media and now t.v. and slide shows and youtube, etc. This whole TIMING IS EVERYTHING moment just blew my mind!You just can’t plan this > life imitating art imitating — life?Here’s my blog about it with links to a lot of the articles, pics, and youtube vids. This whole techno-gadget evolution is mind boggling amazng! people were posting video of our movie’s “behind the scenes” before we even got off the set for the day! and thank you! Indies -we, they, rawk! Fan driven – no hype – amazing! http://deadstarthorrorfilm.blogspot.com/
Haha I thought this was real. When I saw it I was on google with my friends and just mucking about I typed in “swine flu” then saw that. we like went into panic and sent it to all our friends haha.
this story is real some mexican just bit a chunk of my friends arm off!
Did you know that nigas get the swine flu worse? If a niga gets the swine flu then they just die. I guess that shows that even the earth hates nigas.
i agree with zidon on the whole niga thing. I think nature just wants all nigas to be dead. I say we all start a rally and kill them all!
nono u have it all wrong its the mexicans that should die. If there was no mexicans there would be no swine flu and no zombies. I say we kill all the mexicans then kill the nigas.
YOU GUYS ARE FORGETTING ABOUT CHINKS!!! THEY HAVE THE BIRD FLU ITS GONNA BE WORSE THEN THE SWINE FLU. KILL THE CHINKS FIRST THEN MEXICANS THEN THOSE GOD DAM NIGAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
if zombies do come to life we should buy lots of random weapons and try to get ray guns. if we get ray guns we could kill the zombies in one shot. as a secondary weapon we should get a mg42 or a browning m1919. i pwn with the mg42 anyone want to 1on1??
ill 1v1 you anyday and i agree that we should rally together to kill the nigas mexicans and i would like to add in the jews. god hates them and we all do to so lets just kill them and make the world a better place.
I say we all march down the street saying “Hail Hitler!” and then we can grab jews by there horns and throw them down a big well.
1v1 wats ur gamertag lets go u noob rite now nooblet face noob titz noob asholes pusy cuunt niga. ur moms vajine hangs like sleeve of wizard noober.
swine flu creates ZOMBIES. If any of you commenters, seriously, thought for even a nanosecond that it was nothing more than a spoof/joke/outright lie/utter bullshit, even if it was published by the BBC and CNN and even if President Obama said it was true and the Terror Alert Level was raised to Magenta and the Justice League was being called in…..you cannot be serious when you say you would believe it. You people scare me more than Zombie flu.
This is possibly the most racist conversation i have ever seen in my life! Black people dying straight away from swine flu???? so that means we should kill them straight away?!?!? WTF??? whats it got to do with the jews and the chinese….. i can understand possibly some people being annoyed with mexico, but most of you are just sick!!!!