Former Thunder coach Scott Brooks will eventually speak to the media about his firing, but this news article supposedly from The Oklahoman where he says Oklahoma City will regret the decision is fake.
This is how the fake Scott Brooks article was made
This is an impressive fake, though.
The Internet quickly grabbed hold of it this morning because everything lines up. The quotes are strong enough to warrant attention but hardly unbelievable. The style and pacing sounds just like an actual news article would, while all the attribution looks solid. Even the lead looks like something Darnell Mayberry, the actual Thunder beat writer this was fakely attributed to, would write.
But it’s actually a clever deception made courtesy of Clone Zone, a tool that allows anyone on the Internet to build fake web pages. It duplicates a preexisting web page and allows you to add your own text, which in this case was fake Brooks quotes such as this one, which implied Durant would see no reason to return to Oklahoma City during his impending free agency because of the way the organization handled this situation.
The secret to Clone Zone is given away in the URL, which adds an extra clonezone.link that is barely noticeable unless you know what you’re looking for.
Nice job, Internet user. You tricked about half the Internet, even if it was only for a few minutes. Maybe apply for an actual journalism job somewhere, because that news story was very well written.
