Dolly lives: the Internet tries and fails to kill another celebrity

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:14:24 -0700

The rumor mills of the Web never stop trying to kill celebrities. Periodically, 'news' of a celebrity death hits social networks like Digg and Twitter and starts a wildfire of false information. Back in June, we had a high profile fictitious casualty on Twitter and Jared Fogel, Subway's quasi-celebrity spokesperson, was the victim. Today's virtual demise was none other than country music legend and film star Dolly Parton, who was said to have died of congestive heart failure.

A quick snap of Google Trends showed a peak interest in the 'death' at about 6 AM PST yesterday, with gossip columns and blogs spreading the bogus report. The stories claimed that FOX News had announced Parton's death, however, WBIR quickly confirmed that Parton was still alive, and when a story submitted to Digg claimed the news of her death was on FOX, it turned out to only linked to the front page of the FOX entertainment section.

David Dotson, president of the singer's Dollywood Foundation, noted that a similar rumor started a few years ago, and also seemed to originate on the Web.

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Dolly lives: the Internet tries and fails to kill another celebrity