Bill Cosby and Bill Nye Declared Dead, Hoaxes Spread Like Wildfire on Twitter

Every once in a while pranksters decide to declare someone – usually a popular individual – dead. This time it’s the turn of comedian Bill Cosby and Bill Bye, also known as The Science Guy.

Bill Cosby has “died” numerous times before and judging by the tweets posted by his fans after the rumors were proven to be false, these pranks are getting old.

“Bill Cosby is alive. Stop with the death hoaxing. It's not even funny,” wrote Kevin C. Johnson, the man behind the Blender blog.

As far as Bill Nye is concerned, the folks from Hoax Slayer have an interesting theory as to who may be behind the false stories circulating on Facebook and Twitter.

The rumors may have been started by individuals who don’t agree with Nye’s stance on evolution. This theory may be valid, especially since “The Science Guy” spoke out against the denial of evolution in a Big Think clip posted on YouTube on August 23.

So let’s take a look at these hoaxes strictly from an information security point of view. While many internauts consider these pranks nothing but “jokes that are not amusing,” there is another side to such schemes.

It’s well known that cybercriminals tend to leverage any piece of news that’s going viral. They could easily take the initial hoax message - which usually comes without a link to a source - and add their own link, which points to a malware-laden website.

Furthermore, other scams may be used by cybercrooks to convince Facebook users into liking and sharing their shady pages. According to reports, this has already happened with the Bill Nye hoax.

This is why users are advised never to click on links that accompany outrageous stories without checking the legitimacy of the source first.