Fake News is Coming? Game of Thrones Pirates Are Going to Jail

[Chloe Scott]

When a new Game of Thrones season is about to land, major news publications everywhere tend to come up with something exciting. But what if there's no obvious angle? Easy! Come up with a sensational headline claiming that Game of Thrones downloaders are going to jail but don't offer a single shred of evidence to back it up. Then sit back, and wait for the clicks.

In case anyone hadn’t noticed, a new series of Game of Thrones started last week. That meant hundreds of articles about the show, especially since this is probably its last hurrah.

We too did our bit, writing earlier this week how the first episode in the series had resulted in a flood of downloads via torrent sites. We’ve been writing about the show in this context for years, so the latest installment probably didn’t come as a surprise.

What will have come as a surprise, to the people who had the misfortune to read it, was an article published on the Daily Mail’s site.

As is customary, the piece was placed to the left of a sidebar of clickable articles focusing on the physical attributes of mainly female celebrities in various states of undress. The piece about Game of Thrones admittedly featured less flesh but sought to be just as outrageous.