Sen. Orrin Hatch humorously responded with a series of tweets Tuesday morning to a Google search that indicated he’d died.
The internet’s rapid exchange of information has led to numerous hoaxes of prominent people dying over the years. When it happened to Sen. Orrin Hatch, he was ready with proof to the contrary in a series of tweets.
A Google search result Monday night falsely indicated Hatch had died Sept. 11,2017, according to Mashable. “We might need to talk,” Hatch tweeted at Google, with a screenshot of the error.
And the seven-term Utah senator didn’t stop poking fun at Google there — posting a string of tweets to prove he’s had quite the time as of late for someone supposedly dead.
Tweets from the official Hatch Twitter account included photos of him reading the Deseret News and eating bacon, a video of Hatch at Josh Holt’s Utah return, and even some boasts of what Hatch has accomplished by way of legislation since he “passed.”
On Twitter, Hatch wasn’t the only one to get in on the fun.
Google later responded as well.
According to HuffPost, the error stemmed from a change to Hatch’s Wikipedia entry. The entry was later corrected with any reference to his death removed.
Google’s “knowledge panel” is where the mistake was listed, and the company populates the section from a “variety of sources” like Wikipedia, according to the Washington Post.
Hatch, 84, is set to retire in January after 41 years in the Senate.
