It's the most effective way to warn people not to spread hoaxes on social media. If you want to warn people about hoaxes, posting a hoax that goes viral is probably the best way to do it.
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On July 31, tienne Klein, a physicist at cole Centrale Paris, posted a photo of a sliced chorizo sausage on the internet and said it was a photo of our nearest neighbor, Proxima. A new world is revealed day after day.
It looks like a plausible Proxima Centauri photo to the almost eight billion people in the world who aren't trained physicists, and probably some of them as well. Most of the physicist'stweets get closer to 30.
Klein had attached a joke to a picture he had recycled from Imgur. Imgur user superl0pez wrote that the blood moon can be seen in Spain.
After Klein's version of the chorizo joke went up, confusion reigned for a while, as some users pointed out that the sausage was a sausage, and others just shared a picture of a star.
On August 2, Huffington Post France reached out to Klein for an explanation and he said that he was more on this network as a figure of scientific authority.
Klein apologized the next day, but he insists that he just wanted to urge caution.
If the photos are from qualified scientists who aren't known for posting jokes online, then only spread them. Don't use social media if you're on the safe side.
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