'Jackie Chan Dying After Perfecting Deadly Stunt' Hoax Spreads on Social Media Websites

Jackie Chan happens to be a favorite actor among many of us who take pleasure in the enjoyment of an action-packed movie. For those of us who are his biggest fans, it would be heart-breaking to hear the news that he died after perfecting a deadly stunt by falling from 12 floors of a building. To put us at rest, this recent news is nothing more than another notch in the belt of social-network-engineered Hollywood hoaxes.

The recent Jackie Chan's death stunt hoax reads: 'Hollywood Breaking News - Jackie Chan died after perfecting a deadly stunt. Jackie Chan falls from a building of 12 floors. Police are currently investigating. Watch the original video of the deadly stunt and their effort to save Jackie Chan.'

The perpetual hoax machine that we have grown to known as a dark-side of social media has spewed other claims of Jackie Chan, among other actors, dying in horrific incidents. Another version of Jackie Chan's fabricated death claims, Jackie Chan died while filming a movie in Kitzbühel, Austria early this morning - June 20, 2013. Preliminary reports from the Austrian Police officials shows that the actor fell more than 50 feet to his death in a remote area of the Hahnenkamm mountains while on-set during the filming of a movie. Specific details are not yet available.'

Because the Jackie Chan death news is completely false, we can all find humor in how creative the scammers are who come up with such an elaborate way of explaining the actor's dreadful death. It is as if every detail of Chan's alleged demise is known and spewed to the public.

In today's age, information is spread at the speed of light and our takeaway is that we cannot believe everything put on the internet, unless you are extremely gullible. With that said, it behooves us to beware of the underlying scams with these hoax news stories of popular figures supposedly facing a horrific death. Most often these hoaxes are derived by scammers who want to see how far their preposterous story will travel. Other hoaxes may be created to potentially spread malicious files or conduct a socially engineered scam on a popular social network.

If you have any doubt about Jackie Chan and his well-being, he has personally posted on his Facebook page (Figure 1) that he is alive. He even posted a picture of himself with the data if anyone had any doubts.

Figure 1. Jackie Chan posting an image of himself on Facebook to prove he is alive. - Source: Facebook