On Feb. 24, 2022, the first full day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, social media users shared widely an insidious hoax that purported to provide details of the death of an “American journalist” or other U.S. citizens in a Russian bombing.
The viral hoax typically had the following components:
For example, on the night of Feb. 23, one Twitter account posted a message that read:
BREAKING: American journalist Farbod Esnaashari has been severely injured in bomb blast in Kyiv, Ukraine. The White House is currently preparing a statement…
Esnaashari is a real reporter, but he covers basketball for Sports Illustrated, was not present in Ukraine during the invasion, and continued tweeting after the false and unsettling rumor of his demise had been posted. The photograph of him is authentic and appears to have been taken from his Twitter profile. Another figure from the world of basketball fandom, Arye Abraham, was featured in a second phony tribute to a supposedly deceased American journalist.
Multiple examples of the hoax could be found on Twitter in the first 24 hours of the invasion. Some of the most prominent examples appeared to be linked to online trolling and gamer tropes, similar to the “Sam Hyde” hoax often...
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