5 biggest Internet hoaxes of 2019 so far…

We’re only in April yet there has been so much rubbish flying across cyberspace already, we hardly know where to start. We’ve been scouring the interwebs for what has been tricking people the most so far in 2019.

Facebook is removing inactive group members

This rumour became so popular because it was based on a real decision by Facebook that did really result in many groups noticing a drop in members. But the claim that Facebook were removing all inactive members wasn’t true. What actually happened is that Facebook moved all members who were invited by others to the group and had never interacted with the group at all to a pending list. Group admins could message people in the pending list to confirm their membership into the group, else they’d eventually be removed.

Did a vlogger have a camera surgically implanted in his arm?

When you have millions of fans on YouTube, your pranks are probably going to go viral, and vlogger (that’s video blogger to the rest of us) Jake Paul did fool plenty of people when he claimed to have a camera put into his arm that he could activate just by flexing. Were his fans a bit gullible for believing this? Probably. But some gaffes in his videos gave the game away, and his trusted “surgeon” – through a simple Google search – turned out to be a cosmetic dentist. So probably not the person you’d want doing surgery on your arm, then.

Does rising from bed too quickly result in a stroke?

A viral post claimed that rising from bed in the night too quickly could result in a stroke, and that people should wait around 90 seconds (three intervals of 30 seconds) before rising completely out of bed. The only problem is that the claim – apparently made by a “paramedic” – isn’t supported by the medical community, many of which specifically dismissed the claims.

Can you “bypass” Facebook’s algorithm by posting a message?

This relic from 2018 has continued to dupe people in 2019, and it claims that the same 25 friends will keep appearing in your newsfeed until you copy and paste a message is just nonsense. Your newsfeed shows posts related to people you interact with the most often, and is less likely to show stories related to people you rarely interact with. But there are tons of other factors involved as well, including how important Facebook thinks a post is. Some people may see stories from lots of friends, others from only a small amount. It depends how each user and their friends use Facebook. And most importantly, copying and pasting a message (even if you ask others to comment on that message) isn’t going to change any of that.

Momo!!

Before we start hearing cries of “Momo was real… I saw it” we’d like to clarify what we mean. Yes, silly pranksters were sharing that creepy, creepy photo online, and yes, there were some very isolated cases of some people splicing it into videos with cartoons saying inappropriate things.

But most of the rumours we saw being shared by panicked parents were exaggerated or simply just not true. The claims that Momo was “hacking” videos, or video games, or could make itself magically appear on someone’s device were just ridiculous. Even the presence of Momo was also highly exaggerated. Yes, there were some people sharing the image, but it was the warnings about Momo that were going viral, not Momo itself. Most people heard about Momo or seen the image thanks to the warnings themselves, which only ended up fuelling the hysteria, which in turn resulted in more pranksters harnessing the meme.

And the claims just got more and more ridiculous until many of frenzied reports surfacing online actually made it seem like that Momo was some sort of supernatural being floating across cyberspace! Momo was 90% hoax, and 10% prank. And it’s got the top spot in our list thus far.