This past weekend, social media sites were flooded with a message from Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman that lambasted the media for sensationalistic coverage of Friday's tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. The 274-word critique was admittedly well-written and called out media outlets for placing a celebrity-like spotlight on the killer who carried out the unthinkable act. "Turn off the news," was the main takeaway from the post, which quickly went viral and gained millions of likes on Facebook. There was just one problem: Morgan Freeman didn't write it. Freeman's publicist Stan Rosenfield told TheWrap that the actor had nothing to do with the message on the Sandy Hook shooting, deeming the entire phenomenon a bizarre hoax.

As of now, Freeman's representatives are still trying to uncover who was behind the falsely-attributed message. Ultimately it's yet another example of how a single post can spread like wildfire across social media, granting little time for fact checking. Still, when you imagine Freeman's calming voice reading the below text, it's almost believable.