We all know that Twitter can be an interesting tool for users to share their thoughts, feelings and everyday occurrences and for companies to share news and special offers with their customers. But what happens when a malicious rumour is started and begins to spiral out of control?
Kanye West tweets officially rocketed on September 16 after he publicly humiliated Canadian country singer and teen princess Taylor Swift on the MTV VMA awards by barging on stage, interrupting her acceptance speech and announcing that Beyonce Knowles should have won the award as she 'had the best video of all time!' Kanye was booed off stage and a shocked Taylor stood in silence as the whole world watched... and tweeted!
Kanye-related Tweets soared with fans and fellow celebrities casting their opinion on the whole episode. Some especially stand-out tweets came from the celebs who were tweeting live from the VMA audience:
Pink: ‘Kanye West is the biggest piece of @#*! on earth. Quote me.’
Katie Perry: ‘It’s like you stepped on a kitten’
Following a very public apology after the awards ceremony, West-related tweets soon returned to their normal level.
That was until rumours of Kanye's sudden death surfaced...
Once again, on October 21, the Twitter world went wild (twild?) after a tweet surfaced claiming West had been killed in a car crash. “RIP Kanye West” also became the most searched for term in the USA just hours after the tweet.
It was just a Twitter-propagated hoax (twoax?)
The Twitter death (tweth?) rumour was soon put to bed by West’s girlfriend Amber Rose (via twitter of course!) which then led to some comical tweets linking the death hoax with the balloon boy hoax which was also making headlines in the news that day ('Imma let you finish, but Balloon Boy was the best hoax of all time!')
It is thought that a replication of the Fox News homepage, announcing that the rapper was dead aged 32, was the source of the rumour.
Let this be a reminder to us all - Twitter does not equal the twuth!
