10 Ridiculous Fake Status Updates Your Friends Shared On Facebook
5. The Egyptians Have Made Necrophilia Legal
This story, shared around social media a couple of years ago, is a perfect example of a hoax with a specific goal the demonisation and othering of a Muslim state and its inhabitants. After all, no newspaper ever went broke by appealing to the fears and prejudices of its readership. In this case, the story was about a so-called farewell intercourse law, which allowed Egyptian Muslim men to continue to have sex with their deceased wives up to six hours after time of death. Where on Earth did this nonsense come from? Well, from a carefully interpreted chain of Chinese whispers based on an entirely speculative and theoretical discourse by a controversial columnist on the possible consequences of an Islamist Egyptian parliament. News sources and websites then ran with that column as, THE EGYPTIAN MUSLIMS ARE ALL NECROPHILES. Youre wondering what that means in English, arent you? Lets draw a rough parallel: its like Richard Littlejohn or Jeremy Clarkson writing a column for one of Englands right wing rags speculating madly that under a Labour government lesbians could potentially be given your children to raise, and then watching the entire English-speaking world decide that this single column is incontrovertible proof that LESBIANS WILL EAT OUR CHILDREN UNDER LABOUR. Just FYI: when you share this kind of arrant, dangerous nonsense on Facebook without a single fact check, youre not just letting the bad guys win. You are the bad guys.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
