No, Daniel Radcliffe Does Not Have Coronavirus

An eye-rolling bit of fake news spread through Twitter yesterday as a very clearly fake Twitter account posing as BBC News Tonight duped journalists into thinking Harry Potter and Guns Akimbo actor Harry Potter had contracted the Coronavirus.

The first clue this tweet was fake should have been its word salad phrasing. It's tough to imagine the BBC would tweet out "The actor is said to be the first famous person to be publically confirmed." The second clue was that the account that tweeted the news had roughly 140 followers before getting suspended. The third clue was that the link included in the tweet led to nothing regarding Radcliffe and the Coronavirus.

Nevertheless, the tweet was amplified by New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, Politico editor Blake Hounshell and others, who shared the news uncritically, leading to complete bewilderment on the timeline.

Daniel Radcliffe does not have coronavirus but NYT’s Maggie Haberman retweeting this fake bbc news story pic.twitter.com/Y0tUp1QxJk

— Xavier Zapata (@xavierzapata) March 10, 2020

Apologies, folks – fooled by a fake BBC account.

— Blake News (@blakehounshell) March 10, 2020

For those of the gullible persuasion, Daniel Radcliffe does not have Coronavirus. He was on stage last night. He's fine.

— Daniel Radcliffe UK News (@danradcouk) March 10, 2020

whoever made the tweet that said daniel radcliffe had coronavirus that I sent to 100 people before I realized it was fake ………. …. I’ll admit that one was on me pic.twitter.com/UaJ4dxQO92

— nicole boyce (@nicolewboyce) March 10, 2020

The fake BBC account was quickly deleted, but a poor week for fact-checking and journalism continues.