14 DAY TRIAL // Morgan Freeman – the actor famous for his roles in The Shawshank Redemption, Se7en, Million Dollar Baby and many others – is alive and well, but unfortunately, he joined the ranks of celebrities declared dead in hoaxes circulating on social media websites.
“At about 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, our beloved actor Morgan Freeman passed away due to a artery rupture. Morgan was born on June 1, 1937. He will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page,” reads the phony message.
The news is going viral, but fortunately it’s not true. However, unlike other celebrity death hoaxes we’ve seen so far, this time, the pranksters have taken it to another level. They created a Facebook page that already gathered over 860,000 Likes.
Here are some of the messages posted by the pranksters:
FOX News just got ahold of the news of Morgan Freeman, this is going viral. The world will not forget.
RIP Morgan Freeman. He was an outstanding actor and narrator. I hope he knew God.
First comes denial, then comes anger, then comes sorrow, then acceptance. Right now most of you are at anger. It's okay though it's normal. The last post they made shows that it was all a hoax.
“Morgan Freeman is only dead temporarily , God wanted him to narrate some things up in heaven,” it read.
Currently there are over 20 Facebook pages entitled “RIP Morgan Freeman” and all of them have gathered at least a dozen of Likes.
We want to remind everyone that such hoaxes can be easily integrated into cybercriminal campaigns. The next thing you know there will be a RIP Morgan Freeman app and users will be urged to install a shady piece of software.
In another plausible scenario, the fraudsters could attempt to lure internauts to all sorts of malware-serving websites.