Willie Nelson is Victim of Yet Another Death Hoax of a Death Hoax
It happened again, and thanks to over 500,000+ shares on Facebook (and counting), many Willie Nelson fans believe the legendary country singer died on Saturday, April 11th in Maui, and one dubious website is reaping the financial rewards.
A site called msmbc.co—purposely titled to be easily confused with msnbc.com—initially posted a fake death story involving Willie Nelson on February 21st, 2015. The site then updated the story on Saturday, April 11th with a fake tale about Willie being found unresponsive on his front lawn, causing the concern for Willie Nelson’s living status to start anew.
The reason such sites post fake death stories is they tend to go viral quickly on Facebook and other social network sites, driving significant traffic to the fake web pages and resulting in a financial windfall for the site owners through ad revenue. Avoiding the fake sites completely is the best way to attempt to break the cycle. Re-sharing the story, even if you’re announcing it’s fake, only continues the traffic event for the fake sites.
Compounding the problem, the fake story continues to be updated to reflect the current day’s date. Though the actual msmbc.co update was made on April 11th, it currently reflects an April 12th date, and hypothetically will continue to change its date daily to keep the ruse going. The fake article also states, “Rumors of Nelson’s death first circulated early (today date) on social media outlets but was later confirmed by police.” This causes many readers to discredit other information they might see that the death is indeed a hoax, keeping the hoax going perpetually.
Instead of going to the fake msmbc.co site to see for yourself, you can find the text of the fake story below, along with some screen shots of the site. Again, going to the site or sharing it in any way just perpetuates the cycle, and encourages more hoaxes about celebrities that are near and dear to the hearts of fans, and also puts money in the hands of the hoaxters.
Legendary country music star Willie Nelson was found dead today in his Maui home. He was 81 years old. Rumors of Nelson’s death first circulated early April 12, 2015 on social media outlets but was later confirmed by police.
A groundskeeper scheduled to perform yard maintenance on Nelson’s property reportedly found the singer/songwriter unresponsive on the front lawn and immediately called 911.
“There was no evidence of drug abuse or alcohol and no signs of foul play,” said Det. Aldeson.
“Determining an official cause of death could take as long as 3 weeks,” said County Coroner Frank Shultz. “It’s just too early to tell what caused his tragic death.”
The shocking news comes just days after a recent “60 Minutes” interview where Nelson was quoted as saying “Life is good and I have never felt better or been happier.”
This story is still developing and all information is not yet officially verified.
Screen Shots taken Saturday (4-11) night of fake death hoax:
Willie Nelson death hoaxes are popular with such misleading sites. Another website called mediamass.net (that may be associated with msmbc.co) published another death story on or around February 21st, 2015 that also went viral. Making the deed even more sinister, after the death story went viral, mediamass.net turned around and debunked their own myth by posting a new story about the hoax, causing their myth-busting story to go viral as well, getting unsuspecting readers both coming and going, and undoubtedly making lots of revenue from ads on the articles. There’s a good chance the msmbc.co article could pull the same tactic in the future.
It’s always best to check with more reputable websites to confirm the death of a celebrity before sharing the news on social media. You can also check snopes.com which has also debunked the Willie Nelson death hoaxes.
April 12, 2015 @ 9:30 am
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: 100 years from now when most of us are dead & gone, Willie Nelson, Keith Richards and Shane MacGowan will still be here, probably performing as a trio.
April 12, 2015 @ 9:35 am
These people are scumbag bottomfeeders. Disrespectful. Can willie take criminal action?
April 12, 2015 @ 9:41 am
One of the problems is a lot of these sites operate on offshore servers just like terrorist sites and mass spammers so they are very hard to impossible to shut down. There’s a lot of money being made here. Entities like Google can diminish these sites in rankings and such, but really the inadvertent 3rd party accessory to the hoax is Facebook. Their algorithm encourages the viral nature of these stories, and should be tweaked to when you have circumstances such as this, the links to these pages are removed, INCLUDING when people link to it to tell all their friends it’s fake, which doesn’t make it better, it makes it worse.
December 5, 2016 @ 4:38 pm
That is what YOU say!
April 12, 2015 @ 10:10 am
Great.. so why don’t you cover the story and drive some of that valuable traffic to your site so you can reap the ad revenue?
April 12, 2015 @ 10:32 am
Okay, so what am I supposed to do as a responsible journalist in the country music field, let the hoaxsters perpetuate their ruse unchecked and sit back munching on popcorn and watch as people are misled? It would be one thing if it was just a death hoax, but when the hoaksters add the wrinkle of being the entity to debunk their own hoaxes, I think it is not just the elective option of journalists, it the sworn responsibility of journalists to help readers navigate through the complexities of the situation and serve the public the truth. I should forward you the email I received late last night from a reader saying they will never read my site again because I’m reporting on Jason Aldean, but completely ignoring the fact that Willie Nelson died. For every 1 time Saving Country Music’s story is shared, the fake one will be shared 1,500 times. This site is not experiencing any sort of significant traffic event from this story, and any revenue the site will make will be marginal. This is simply an attempt to explain what happened in an intelligent manner to people who want to find that information. Jeez.
April 12, 2015 @ 10:57 am
You’re kind of dumb; huh?
April 12, 2015 @ 12:02 pm
I understand what she’s saying. I just think someone has to give folks a road map of how these death hoaxes work or they will never stop falling for them.
Very few people are reading this article. I would say it’s performing below average compared to most articles published on the site. The idea I’m being opportunist is silly. The article I posted in March about the previous death hoax is the one seeing a slight uptick in interest, but even that is nothing compared to the amount of traffic the hoax is drawing itself.
April 12, 2015 @ 11:30 am
First off, I wish these low life pieces of shit who write this fucking garbage would just fuck right the hell off and get a fucking life. Second, if you are the kind of person that hears this shit, believes it no matter how fucking phony it sounds then passes it on to 8 million fucking people without knowing whether or not its fictitious or not a big double fuck you asshole! People need to grow up and quit believing every fucking thing that is put in front of the via the internet!
April 13, 2015 @ 6:32 am
This is where they take advantage of the sheer laziness of most users of the internet and social media especially. Opening a new tab and pointing it to a Google search is too easy, yet most simply can’t be bothered. Imagine if even a quarter of the morons who mindlessly shared this story had taken a minute to do this. But the scammers know that by the law of averages, most will simply take it as gospel and click that share button. It’s a rather sad commentary on our society today.
April 13, 2015 @ 8:47 am
And nothing says grown up like typing 12 f-words and various other profanities in a five-line paragraph.
April 12, 2015 @ 12:01 pm
I think the key here that this was a hoax was the line “there was no signs of drug abuse.” That kind of gave it away that this couldn’t be real. haha don’t mind my clowning.
April 12, 2015 @ 12:57 pm
Hmmmmm …..I saw Willy about a month ago and I’m pretty sure he was dead .
April 12, 2015 @ 3:03 pm
I can’t believe people don’t check this sort of thing immediately. Google people!
April 12, 2015 @ 3:51 pm
Even as a hoax, I don’t like thinking about it. 🙁
Thanks for exposing the hoaxers though, Trig.
April 12, 2015 @ 4:28 pm
Careful Trig~ I’ve heard rumors surrounding the collapse and crash of an “outlaw” country music blog that singlehandedly brought down bro-country.
April 12, 2015 @ 10:13 pm
How can people can be so sick minded and stupid too.
April 13, 2015 @ 2:32 am
Bastards!
April 13, 2015 @ 6:08 am
Just don’t forward shit on Facebook.
And quit inviting me to play those stupid games, too!!
December 5, 2016 @ 4:42 pm
You are the worlds saddest person playing the worlds smallest guitter!
April 13, 2015 @ 6:16 am
In a related story, Willie’s pot dealer has died. He apparently died of a massive heart failure after reading the rumor of Nelson’s death. The thought of such a suden, large drop in revenue turned out to be too much for the man to handle.
August 24, 2015 @ 6:15 am
How sad that this website would actually dwell on everyone’s emotions…………. We would all be absolutely saddened if this was true I was listening to Willie and Waylon Jennings today…Put another log on the fire was one of our favorites growing up my parents always played Willy Nelson songs and I am 52 years old now…that would probably tell you how young I was when we were listening to his music loved it then and love it now my 10-year-old daughter listens to His music as well ..unfortunately there is probably nothing anyone can do as to ban this website completely from Facebook or anywhere else that they are affiliated with as far as I’m concerned what a bunch of uncompassionate assholes they all are and by the way Karma is a bitch!!!