Truth rating: 1
5:00 pm, February 10th, 2012
(GettyImages.com)
The Internet exploded with unsubstantiated rumors of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s alleged assassination in Beijing on Friday.
The reports, which began on the social media platform Weibo in China, quickly spread thanks to Twitter and some less-than-cautious reporting by several major news websites.
But absolutely NOTHING was ever verified, and according to U.S. intelligence officials, there are no facts to back up the story.
“With [North Korean] society you can never be 100% sure, but we just don’t see any evidence of it,” a U.S. official told CNN.
Rumors seemed to coalesce around the idea that Kim Jong Un had been killed at North Korea’s embassy in China.
A second wave of speculation began after a fake Twitter account attributed to the BBC supposedly “confirmed” the news.
But, again, as of now, the consensus among actual news organizations is that Kim Jong Un is alive.
His father, Kim Jong Il, died in December.
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