According to a message that began circulating on Facebook and other social media outlets in June 2013, popular actor Jackie Chan has died after falling from a building. The message suggests that the deadly accident occurred after Jackie performed a stunt on a 12 story building. It urges users to click a link to watch a video of the accident and its aftermath. However, the claims in the message are untrue. Jackie Chan is alive and well. The message is just another nasty celebrity death hoax. A link in the original version of the message opened a Facebook page that has since been removed from the network. One version of the hoax tries to entice people into installing a rogue Facebook application, supposedly so that video of the accident can be viewed. After installing the app, users are then told they must fill in an online survey, as a means of verifying their age. However, the supposed age verification is just a ruse designed to trick users into participating in survey scams. Nobody will ever get to see the promised video, which does not exist. The following alternative - and equally false - version of the hoax claims that Jackie Chan fell from a cliff rather than a building: Jackie Chan died while filming a movie in Kitzbühel, Austria early this morning - June 20, 2013. Preliminary reports from the Austrian Police officials shows that the actor fell more than 50 feet to his death in a remote area of the Hahnenkamm mountains while on-set during the filming of a movie. Specific details are not yet available. The accident occurred at approximately 4:30 a.m. (UTC/GMT +12). The man himself has posted to Facebook denying his untimely demise, noting: Hi everybody! Yesterday, I got on a 3am flight from India to Beijing. I didn’t get a chance to sleep and even had to clean my house when I got home. Today, everybody called to congratulate me on my rumored engagement. Afterward, everybody called me to see if I was alive. If I died, I would probably tell the world! I took a photo with today’s date, just in case you don’t believe me! However, thank you all for your concern. Kiss kiss and love you all! The Austrian cliff version of the hoax originates from a disgraceful "prank" website that allows users to create bogus news stories detailing the supposed death of various celebrities. Those who choose to use the services offered by the site can pick from several "news" templates, add the name of their chosen celebrity and then attempt to fool their friends by sharing the bogus story. One such template is the "cliff accident" story used in this hoax. Many famous people have been falsely reported as dying in variations of the same cliff accident or in car or snowboarding accidents. Before sharing or reposting a message that claims that a famous person has died, it is wise to check the story via a reputable news source. If a well-known person such as Jackie Chan does die, the news will be widely reported by the main-stream media, so a quick search of a news source such as Google News should quickly reveal if the claims in a message are true or false. Moreover, if you receive one of these celebrity death messages, do not click on any links that it contains.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 07:26:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015