Imagine you’re just scrolling Twitter and suddenly see that the first celebrity with coronavirus just happens to be our childhood best friend and crush, Harry Pot—er, Daniel Radcliffe. Imagine the fear that consumes you—the concern, the anger. We all suddenly want to protect the Boy Who Lived.
And then we see that’s it’s from a random Twitter account that is called BBC News but is not verified and has 125 followers …
Why Daniel Radcliffe, in the year of our lord 2020, I may never know, but it seemed as if he was the first to be fake-infected. The account, which is now suspended, just tweeted it out with a link to a real but unrelated BBC page to, I guess, make it seem official, but that brief moment had me yelling. I guess I’ll never be over my love for Daniel Radcliffe. Good to know.
Fake BBC account with 125 followers fake-infected Daniel Radcliffe with covid-19.
Link resolves to a genuine BBC news alert page that hasn’t been updated since 2017. pic.twitter.com/vJk3gBEtQj
— Jane Lytvynenko 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ (@JaneLytv) March 10, 2020
Don’t worry, though. Our favorite wizard is fine.
Daniel Radcliffe’s publicist tells me: “Not true.”
— Jane Lytvynenko 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ (@JaneLytv) March 10, 2020
What this does though is suddenly strike fear in the hearts of all of us who live online and care about the wellbeing of public figures and the unnecessary, opportunistic spread of panic. There’s been a few joke tweets circulating around the world saying who they thought the first to get infected with coronavirus would be, and while it’s a “hilarious” look at how Twitter culture exists, it does make me suddenly fear for the fake-out tweets like this coming.
Ever wonder why someone is suddenly trending, only to find out someone thought they were dead but they’re actually fine? It’s basically going to be that every day with no way of knowing what’s the truth until a publicist has to tell a reporter that their client is fine. So, you know, a bunch of unnecessary drama for no reason. So really, something that Harry Potter would love.
The thing is though, I’m now afraid of how many tweets are going to surface of random celebrities being sick because there are people who just truly want to see the world burn. There’s absolutely no reason to fake people out, unless you want retweets or to suddenly be “Twitter famous” because you claimed someone has Coronavirus with absolutely no backing to your claims.
Now though, as everyone lives in fear of each other, at least we can take this Harry vibe into our quarantine states.
image: Warner Bros.
So rest easy, my fellow Gryffindors. Harry Potter is alive and well and healthy, doing a play with Alan Cummings. Let’s not tweet out fake Coronavirus cases. We don’t need even more stress in our lives and worrying about a celebrity being sick on top of, you know, taking care of ourselves.
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