“Technical error” usually means your cable is out. It does not usually mean the two top tech companies in the world are merging.
On the Dow Jones newswire today, some decidedly fake news trumpeted Google’s acquisition of Apple for a mere $9 billion. “In a surprise move to everyone who is alive,” the false story began. It would go on to note that the deal was part of Steve Jobs’s will.
“Google employees said, ‘Yay,’” read the final line.
All of the Dow Jones stories were quickly removed, though it did cause a brief hike in Apple’s share price. Other fake announcements on the newswire: Google employees would move to Apple’s HQ and receive nine Apple shares for every Google share owned. The “deal” was set to close tomorrow.
Dow Jones, in a ridiculous response, released the following statement: “Please disregard the headlines that ran on Dow Jones Newswires between 9:34 a.m. ET and 9:36 a.m. ET. Due to a technical error, the headlines were published. All of those headlines are being removed from the wires. We apologize for the error.”
As the top comment on Reddit noted, “Seems an awful lot like Dow Jones speak for ‘we got hacked by a prankster, but we don’t want to admit it since we saw what happened with Equifax when they said they got hacked.’”
Unlike today’s fake news, that’s a very real possibility.
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