Everyone loves a good internet hoax. If I hadn’t forwarded that email chain when I was nine, I would still be having my 30 years of bad luck.
But why do people create these hoaxes? There’s no general answer, as people have different motives, but in general, Dr. Mark Griffiths says there’s five main reasons: to amuse oneself, due to boredom, to get revenge, to achieve some level of fame, to show their cleverness or fraudulent skills, or to disrupt status quo.
i really just got bored and started an internet hoax today because a boy wouldn’t text me back pic.twitter.com/8T7KgiSJ1Z
— caleb (@louboutintwink) September 10, 2019
These reasons seem to make sense, as those are the usual results of an internet hoax being spread. The infamous Momo challenge is apparently becoming a film, so the creator did reach some sort of fame.
Just as the motives for creating these hoaxes aren’t clear, neither is their impact. As a nine-year-old sharing email chains, I can say that those probably weren’t harmful. Certain hoaxes, though, can be on various level.
Take the Tommy Hilfger racism internet hoax, for example. This hoax had harmful effects on Hilfger’s reputation. Even after proving the hoax false, people still believe Hilfger is a racist.
My mom: “you know he doesn’t like black people.” https://t.co/ZDBEfg9sLc
— Gemini Vegetarians (@HouseOfJCurtis) September 10, 2019
It’s a reference to a popular internet hoax about him in 90s. My mom fully believes it even though it’s been proven false.
— Gemini Vegetarians (@HouseOfJCurtis) September 10, 2019
In general, they can cause panic and fear. The Momo challenge scared parents around the nation. The recent Instagram post, though scary in a different reason, made users fearful for their privacy. And because of that fear and the brevity and inattentiveness with which we consume social media, people are quick to share.
And because these hoaxes tend to cause fear, despite usually being easily proven false by a quick Google search, these hoaxes are making us more likely to believe things we see online. And given the fake news epidemic and its effect on current politics, I’d say it’s pretty harmful.
The comparison between a child’s email chain and a company PR scandal is a really insightful way to show the different harm levels of internet hoaxes. I’ve never seen either of the hoaxes you mention, but I remember hearing about the worsened reputation of Tommy Hilfiger. It was interesting to see the hoax that caused such controversy!