The California Highway Patrol said this morning that there is no Amber Alert in Stockton, despite several Tweets to the contrary.
Tweets began appearing Thursday or Friday alleging that a 3-year-old boy was taken by a man in a BMW. Thy give a license plate number and close with “Keep it going. U would if he were yours.”
The fake Amber Alert continued to spread over the weekend and on Monday. Today nearly 60 Tweets carried the hoax between 7-9 a.m. Another dozen or so have appeared while I’ve been writing this blog post.
According to About.com’s Urban Legend’s page, fake Amber Alert Tweets have been appearing across the country since at least February. Some news organizations have reported that police departments have been bogged down with calls after the hoax Tweets appear.
UPDATE 9:48 a.m.: The Stockton Amber Alert hoax has been re-Tweeted by the Grammy-winning Gospel duo Mary Mary, who have more than 50,000 followers on their Twitter account. Several of those followers have re-Tweeted the hoax from Mary Mary.
