15 Internet Hoaxes People Can't Stop Falling For

Misinformation flows on the Internet just as freely as cat photos and sexist memes. Just when Snopes.com and other anti-hoax sites set their sights on one rumor, three new ones sprout up in its place. Even the smartest among us are taken in by clever pranks from time to time. There's no shame in it—it's impossible to verify all of the information flung at you from the farthest reaches of the Internet. What we’ll never understand, however, is how the same hoaxes resurface again and again. Just when you thought everyone you know has already been take in by the Back to the Future hoax, someone else falls victim to the same old tricks. There are some hoaxes that just might live eternally, plaguing new generations of web browsers for years to come. We’re not sure if we can stop people from believing them, but we can keep trying to fight the good fight. Here are 15 Internet Hoaxes People Can’t Stop Falling For.

Most computer virus hoaxes are a bit more convincing than the one above. Since the early days of the Internet, emails and pop-up ads have been trying to convince us that our computers are as disease-ridden as a pirate on shore leave. These hoaxes are far more harmful than your usual Internet lies. Programs like Mac Defender have been sold to unsuspecting customers claiming to rid machines of viruses they don't have. Not only do programs like this fleece users out of their hard earned cash, but they themselves are often malware.

iWatch, Google TV, iCar: an endless string of fake products that have kept nerds salivating since Google and Apple first rose to tech prominence. From time to time, tech-savvy content creators further fuel the rumor mill by creating fake videos. One of the best known prank product launches was Mark Erickson's "Google TV" in 2007. Unfortunately, the gold iPhone was not a hoax.

Rarely in life do insanely profitable companies change the fundamentals of their business model. While we would never expect radical shifts from Wal-Mart or McDonalds, we are ready and willing to believe that Facebook would up and change their profitable standard operating procedure. The most common variation on this hoax is that Facebook is going to start charging. We have also seen claims that Facebook will be "getting rid of its privacy policy," "will be adding a dislike button" and "will end." Though Facebook will likely continue to change their layout as soon as you get used to it, none of things will likely be happening any time soon.

You would think that local news and clickbait websites provide enough in the way of violent crimes, but no, we need to manufacture some in order to get our fill of terrible things in the world. We crave a dose of fake murders, rapes, and assaults in our Internet diet. False crimes are constructed from fragments of truth, or drawn completely out of thin air, to fill our need for digital blood lust.

Just when you thought that all of your Facebook friends had posted this one at least once, there it is in your feed, "OMG! Today is the day from Back to the Future!" Just to clear things up, the date in question (the day that Marty McFly landed in the future in Back to the Future Part II) is October 21st, 2015. For those of you who are prone to bouts of amnesia, here is a website that keeps track of just how long it is until Marty McFly joins us here in the future .

Our health conscious society is always looking for the next miracle fruit to add to the pantry while we vigilantly weed out the foods that are killing us. Our sensitivity to our cuisine has led to the creation of a number of Internet hoaxes. It seems that every food as been accused causing cancer at one point or another. Even cold water has been accused of killing us in fraudulent Internet emails. It is a good thing to eat vigilantly, just don't too vigilantly.

A picture is worth a thousand words and a Photoshopped photo is worth a thousand hoaxes. Most photo-driven Internet hoaxes are harmless. Our unscientific study concluded that over-sized cats and dogs account for roughly 90% of the faked photos online. Altered photos can tug at our heartstrings and even alter our perception of history; that's been true since well before the Internet. Communist Russia was notorious for "fixing" photos to remove those who the Party had decided to remove from the real world. No, the Communists didn't have a beta version of Photoshop, but you know what we mean.

It seems that every stupid television show ever made has legions of fans clambering for a reunion. While some of these, like Arrested Development, actually come to pass, and others, like Firefly, have actually been discussed by the powers that be, most of these plots are a fan boy pipe dream. Whether you are looking for more from the greats like Deadwood to the dregs of Family Matters, the odds of your favorite show coming back after years on the shelf is approximately zero. Until we learn to appreciate what we have, these rumors will persist. We wonder if years down the road, after most of the Friends have shuffled lose the mortal coil, people won't still be pulling for a Ross and Rachel to unite from beyond the grave.

Don't get us wrong, celebrities have some kinky sexual habits. Let's be honest, you would probably get a little kinky yourself if you had the whole world at your naughty finger tips. Some sex rumors crop up that sound a bit too gross (and good) to be true, and usually, they are. For example, that ironman of celebrity sex rumors, the old Richard Gere-gerbil story, is just the figment of some guy who isn't Richard Gere's sick imagination.

If the Internet does not falsely kill a celebrity, they put false words in their mouth. Though innumerable celebrities have had random quotes slapped next to their likeness, Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman seem to get the misattribution treatment more than anyone else. The most egregious misattribution we've seen might be the Bill Cosby "I'm 83 and I'm Tired" rant because not only is Cosby 76, but the words articulate the opposite of the man's world view; the selfish, xenophobic point of view presented in the tea party tinged rant wouldn't likely come out of a thoughtful social commentator with a PhD. in education.

Yes, somehow, some way, the birther movement is alive and well. The spread of misinformation on the Internet and the easy paranoia people have about the spread of information on the Internet have combined to keep the Birther Movement in the news years after what should have been its expiration date. Though the White House has released President Obama's birth certificate, conspiracy theories about where the President was born sadly still have a large following. Most recently, the death of Loretta Fuddy, the official who verified Obama's birth certificate, has been used as crass fuel for the birther fire.

In these fractured political times, it seems that the only news that everyone cares about are celebrity deaths. For every celebrity death that actually happens, there are at least a half-dozen that are manufactured in the darkest bowels of the Internet. Sometimes, actual deaths lead to ridiculous celebrity hoaxes, as was the case when Twitter trolls "mixed up" the late Lou Reed, and one-hit wonder Lou Bega. These hoaxes should teach us to treasure celebs we have while we have them; some day, we won't be able to see "Mambo Number 5" live anymore, and that will truly be a sad day.

Whether it belongs to Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or that long lost treasure hunting relative you never knew you had, the denizens of the Internet need to believe that cash is sitting there just on the other side of the Internet waiting for them to "like" their way to a fortune. It is a safe bet that we will never stop seeing posts like this, with disclaimers like "I just had to post this" and "what do I have to lose" masking the hope that maybe this time Bill or Mark have a nice pile of money reserved just for them. "Get rich quick" schemes are an American fascination, and nothing is quicker than clicking "like" on Facebook.