The attention-grabbing headline of the entirely fabricated story boldly declared: "Morgue Assistant Uses Testicles From Corpses To Help Win Annual Spaghetti Cook-Off." Just the headline alone would prompt most individuals to question the legitimacy of the story. However, had readers taken a moment to focus on the satirical website's header, which humorously proclaimed, "News you can count on to let you down," they would have received a clear cue much earlier.
From Police 1:
The imaginative piece claims that a Carterville woman had never been able to do better than second place in the cooking competition. To get herself over the hump and take home the top prize, the morgue worker collected the testes of dead men and used them in her meatball dish, the false article said.
Her secret ingredient was discovered when one judge, who went back for a third serving, bit down on a prosthetic, the fake article continued.
The totally false piece appeared in late July on KVTA4, a website that describes itself as a “fabricated satirical newspaper and comedy website,” but which is also designed to look like a news website. Facebook users have reacted to, commented on or shared the fake article over 300,000 times, according to CrowdTangle, a tool to analyze interactions across the social network.
Some Facebook users didn’t appear to notice that the article was fake.
“That may be the most disgusting thing I have ever read,” one user wrote.
“What in the actual hell is going on with people,” another use wrote in all caps.
“The world’s gone crazy. More to come,” said another.
