The top 7 Internet hoaxes of 2016
2016 has had its fair share of nonsense floating across the Internet, and we’ve been inundated with questions from sensibly sceptical readers all year long.
As we do for each year, we’ve compiled a list of the biggest hoaxes to spread during the last 12 months based on questions from our readers, page views on our website and social media engagement on our posts. We’ve also taken into account engagement from other popular hoax busting websites too.
So, without further ado, the most popular Internet hoaxes of 2016… from number 7 down to the coveted number one spot…
7. The SKY Remote Hack
To all those SKY customers that may have been trying to plug an Ethernet cable into their remote control to get free channels, you were duped. This rumour first surfaced in November 2016 and was immediately one of the trending hoaxes that people were asking about on our Facebook page, as well as our most visited page for 5 days in a row!
The hoax claimed that by plugging your SKY remote into your router using a secret port under the battery cover, any SKY customer could immediately unlock all their channels, despite what subscription they were on. The hoax claimed it was an unused engineering tool that allowed the secret feature to work.
But alas, anyone with a technical background would know, your TV remote has nothing to do with what channels you can and cannot get. The prankster actually commented on our site, claiming he was “bored on a Friday night” before coming up with the hoax.
6. Easter Eggs banned from supermarkets?
Have Easter Eggs been banned from supermarkets? They have if you were to believe this viral rumour that spread virally across the UK thanks to a misleading headline from tabloid rag The Daily Star (below.)
But in reality, they haven’t. The rumour asserted that supermarkets were dropping the word Easter from their packaging, replacing it with Chocolate Eggs. A spin-off rumour also claimed that Tesco had banned the word Easter from all their Easter Egg products. These rumours were simply false, and just another example of poor tabloid journalism.
We even went into our local supermarket to debunk the claim!
5. Jessica and Christopher Davies Hackers
A late resurgence of this old hoax earned it a place in our top hoaxes for the year. However this hoax – that warns against alleged hackers Jessica and Christopher Davies – predates 2016 by quite some time. We first seen it in 2011 and countless variations with different names have appeared since.
Do not accept a friend request from Christopher Davies and Jessica Davies they are hackers tell everyone on your list because if they accept it they will be on your list too he will find out your computer IP address, so copy and paste to everyone you know even if u don’t care.
This was sent to me , so I am passing it on.
The hoax itself was a mere adaptation of earlier hoaxes targeting users of the Yahoo and MSN messaging services, which themselves were permutations of even older hacker warnings that would spread through chain email.
Given that this particular warning – which we describe here – has popped up a number of different times throughout the years, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it again in 2017.
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4. Killer Clowns?
The run-up to Halloween 2016 saw an unusually high number of killer clown-themed hoaxes spreading virally across the Internet. Killer clown folklore has always been popular during Halloween, but this year the rumours really took off. False claims, such as clown outfits being legally banned, clowns being shot after being mistaken for serial killers and “clown purges”, spread virally across social media amidst reports of genuine (albeit largely innocent) “clown sightings” across the US, Canada and Europe.
However it was the assertion that a killer clown was randomly murdering people across the United States and Canada that really took off over social media, causing much alarm and distress in numerous towns and cities where people donning clown outfits had genuinely been spotted. It was all online hysteria – there were no killer clowns, though a handful of arrests really were made.
We discussed the hysteria here.
3. Killer insects on the loose?
This warning claimed that a new “killer insect” was on the loose – an insect that would result in hundreds of small tiny puncture holes appearing on your body if you made contact with it. The warning came attached to a photo of a hand apparently depicting such an injury, as well as a photo apparently depicting the insect itself.
It was a hoax. The pictured insect was a (perfectly not dangerous) waterbug and the hand injury was from a special effects tutorial, and didn’t depict a real injury. However the warning – that surfaced back in January 2016 – still managed to fool hundreds of thousands. We discussed the hoax in January here.
2. The Facebook Privacy Notice (posts will become public)
Since this hoax began back in 2012, it has topped our most visited pages every year since, and 2016 is no different. The hoax claims that all your posts on Facebook will become public, and to prevent this from happening (or to prevent Facebook from using your information) you need to copy and paste some legal privacy notice to your timeline.
The hoax is pure fiction, since – funnily enough – you can’t supersede a website’s terms of service (that you agreed to) ad-hoc, whenever you like, by posting legal words you copied and pasted from elsewhere.
This remains one of the most popular hoaxes of all time. Will 2017 be any different?
1. “Dance with the Hillary” (“Dance with the Pope”) virus hoaxes
When it comes to the most popular hoaxes in any given year, there’s always at least one describing a virus that doesn’t really exist. These types of hoaxes date back to the 1990s, and the most popular one to spread in 2016 warned of a virus called “Dance of the Hillary” which – according to the warning – would “format your mobile”.
It was just another hoax warning of an online threat that doesn’t exist. In fact, this was just a slightly adapted version of a previous hoax that spread in 2015 which warned of a phantom virus called “Dance of the Pope”. In fact the hoax warnings merely replaced the word pope with Hillary. It was probably no coincidence that the hoax circulated during the run up to the 2016 US Presidential election.
That’s it for another year. Will any of these seven manage to top our most popular hoaxes for 2017? Or will 2017 bring brand new hoaxes in what is shaping up to be an interesting year in the world of online nonsense. We’ll have to wait and see. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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