According to a “breaking news” post that is currently traversing the interwebs at speed, George Zimmerman has been found dead.
However, the claims in the post are untrue. George Zimmerman is not dead.
For those who may not be aware, George Zimmerman was charged and subsequently acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. The ongoing controversy surrounding the Trayvon Martin case has meant that Zimmerman has been the subject of much media attention in the years since the shooting.
The fake-news message claims that authorities discovered Zimmerman’s dead body in a toilet stall at a Marriott hotel after a security guard noticed a putrid odour and observed a person on their knees behind the stall door.
Here’s an example of the post:
If you click on the post you will be taken to a prank website that tells you that “you got owned”. So, the Zimmerman death story is just somebody’s idea of a prank and was never intended to be taken seriously. Given Zimmerman’s history and the rather crude nature of the fictional death story, this “prank” perhaps reflects it’s author’s contempt and hatred for the man.
The prank site claims that it doesn’t support fake-news but, in fact, the material it publishes is certainly deserving of the fake-news label.
The site invites you to create your own prank story via a story template so that you can trick your friends.
Another fake news story, which first appeared back in 2014, falsely claimed that Zimmerman shot and killed himself while loading a gun. And yet another fake story falsely claimed that Zimmerman had been arrested in Ferguson, Missouri after a gun related altercation.
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
