What’s The Deal With Viral Hoaxes?

Posted on by Nolan Olson

Internet hoaxes are a fascinating phenomenon. Many have circulated throughout my time on the internet and I don’t foresee an end to these viral bouts of misinformation. While some hoaxes are quite trivial, we should still ponder the impact they have on society and why people create them in the first place.

Like any form of viral content, hoaxes spread fast and call a lot of attention to themselves. A big internet hoax from earlier this year was the “Momo Challenge,” which involved YouTube. Predictably, the hoax caused a lot of disturbed parents to keep their kids from watching YouTube.

It is difficult to pin down the motive behind every internet hoax, but in the case of the Momo Challenge, it might just function to sully the reputation of YouTube or fuel parents’ existing mistrust of the internet. It would not be a surprise if some people just did it for fun, perhaps pulling a prank on society is thrilling to them. Regardless, hoaxes do not last forever but, even so, what sort of impact do they leave?

Internet hoaxes are both helpful and harmful. The false information that they spread and commotion that they cause is clearly not a good thing. Hoaxes can be damaging to their subjects and targets such as YouTube experiencing a drop in traffic or children becoming upset. Conversely, it might encourage parents to be more watchful of the content that their kids are watching. In the case of fake data leaks, it questions our trust in large internet organizations who know so much about us (it even makes us question powerful people in our government).

It is interesting to analyze something as absurd as internet hoaxes which makes me wonder, what is the next big hoax going to be?

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