Tuesday April 05, 2005

UPDATE: Wired Labels Story as Hoax

Wired News has added the following header to its story about toothing from March 22, 2004:

This story is a hoax. Dozens of news organizations, including Wired News, were duped by pranksters claiming to be practitioners of “toothing,” in which strangers in the U.K. were meeting up on commuter trains for clandestine sexual encounters. The liaisons were supposedly organized through messages broadcast via Bluetooth phones and handhelds. However, one of those involved now says the story was an elaborate hoax. After first creating an online forum, the pranksters persuaded friends to fill the site with scores of salacious, but fictitious, stories. It was from the contributors to this forum that Wired News found and interviewed—by email—the subjects of the story.

Read how the hoax came to light here, here and here.

Posted by jim at 12:51 PM ||