(The Root) — Twitter loves to send celebrities to their graves before their time, and sometimes they even resurrect people who have actually died just so they can send them off again.
Nelson Mandela, who is currently in the hospital battling a lung infection, is the latest notable figure to have suffered a mythical death on Twitter. The user account @PiersRnorgan, an imitation of the real Piers Morgan’s account, tweeted that a spokesman confirmed that Mandela had died in his sleep. The tweet was posted on Saturday and was still being retweeted as of early this morning. The account that started the rumor claims to be a "parody" account, thought it's not so much a parody as it is a flat-out lie.
The actual Morgan urged followers to report the account as spam to get it removed from Twitter.
Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald.
Tracy Clayton is a writer, humorist and blogger from Louisville, Ky.