According to a post circulating via social media, American singer/songwriter and pastor Don Moen has died.
The post links to an error riddled “news” report that claims that Don Moen died “after short battle with stomach pain”.
However, the claims in the report are not true. Don Moen is alive and well. The man himself has debunked the death claim via his official Facebook Page, explaining that “God is not done with me yet”.
The fake-news death report was published by a decidedly dodgy website that calls itself Houston News and uses the web address “houstonchronicle-tv.com”. By including “houstonchronicle” in the address, the bogus site tries to imply that it is associated with the genuine news outlet Houston Chronicle. But, no such association exists and the Houston Chronicle uses the web address www.chron.com.
Scammers and peddlers of fake-news often use false reports about the deaths of celebrities or famous people to attract more site visitors.
It is thus wise to verify any celebrity death reports that come your way on social media before you click on them and before you share them.
Usually, searching an online news aggregator such as Google News will quickly reveal if a circulating death report is true.
An example of the fake-news death post:
