An ebola hoax was bound to happen eventually: Buzzfeed breaks down exactly how the anonymous Internet messageboard 4chan attempted to start a national health scandal with the claim that three workers in a Doritos factory had ebola. 4chan users spread their fake story spread on Twitter via doctored tweets (such as for CNN), Photoshopped news stories, and the hashtag #EbolaInDoritos.Weird, but explicitly stating the story was “not a joke” made the story seem more like a joke.
#EbolaInDoritos is serious. Oh god. I thought it was a joke!!— FredrickVonSpook (@Draikonus) November 3, 2014
In a statement to the New York Daily News, Frito Lay, the company that makes Doritos, called the 4chan prank “insensitive”:
“Internet rumors associating the Ebola virus with one of our packaged snack foods are absolutely and entirely false While the Doritos brand is always a hot topic in social media, it is unfortunate someone chose to use this or any brand for such an insensitive prank.”
Of course, we know that the ebola virus is extremely difficult to spread and it is unlikely it would be transmitted through powdered cheese snackfood, unless workers had exposed their bodily fluids to the ingredients.Nevertheless, the scary part is, if Doritos did have ebola, there would be literally no way to avoid buying, opening, and ingesting this fatal disease at 3a.m. after a drunken night out.
