Joe Flacco death hoax sparked by Ravens Twitter fan page

Contrary to what some bogus reports from Wednesday night would like you to believe, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco is alive and well.

The Twitter page @RavensNationLIVE was supposedly hacked by someone who tweeted that Flacco was killed in a car accident. The tweet looked like this:

Last night there was a report that Joe Flacco died; It was a hoax – https://t.co/PmlVHzIe8H pic.twitter.com/Z94BqR6NIN

— NFL Draft Diamonds (@DraftDiamonds) June 23, 2016

From there, the story quickly spiraled out of control. Other accounts — including a fake Ian Rapoport Twitter page — “reported” that Flacco had been killed in a motorcycle accident. As The Baltimore Sun notes, the fake Rapoport account went as far as to post a fake screenshot of a text message from Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti confirming Flacco had died.

Of course, Joe is very much alive.

Rest easy. Joe is alive and well. #DontBelieveEverythingYouReadOnTwitter

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) June 23, 2016

Unfortunately, these hoaxes are becoming more common as social media hacking grows in popularity. Although, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk speculates that the Ravens fan page may have intentionally created a Flacco death hoax — and later blamed a hacker — to gain publicity. Perhaps the people who run the account saw the frenzy that was created by this NFL death hoax earlier in the month.