# Is it ever ethical to perpetrate a hoax? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309 "2014-07-03T23:46:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/21 "2014-07-04T14:50:12Z")
Do most remember [Jimmy Kimmel’s wolf hoax at the Olympics?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hze_6-f5KNA) That was well played. I liked the Bullshit series as well, it’s great when it can be both educational and entertaining. Penn featured on “Wretched” with this [little clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEeWTMKxWI0) wasn’t something I was expecting. Surprised how well he gets along with fundamentalists, especially after how vocal he was about his atheism on the BS series and in his real life outside of that show too. Just seen Penn on celebrity wife swap, it’s interesting how his kids reacted to a religious person in their house, it all seemed so foreign to them and it was. The little girl especially amused me when she innocently asked the woman about her little prayer ritual at eating time, “why do you have a napkin on top of your head?” ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/22 "2014-07-04T15:13:54Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > Do most remember [Jimmy Kimmel’s wolf hoax at the Olympics?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hze_6-f5KNA) That was well played. Well played? That was EPIC! I did not follow the Olympics, so this was the first I had heard of it and I nearly choked, I was laughing so hard. ---
**Author:** ![Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absinthe_Anecdote)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/23 "2014-07-04T17:00:42Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > Do most remember [Jimmy Kimmel’s wolf hoax at the Olympics?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hze_6-f5KNA) That was well played. > > I liked the Bullshit series as well, it’s great when it can be both educational and entertaining. Penn featured on “Wretched” with this [little clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEeWTMKxWI0) wasn’t something I was expecting. Surprised how well he gets along with fundamentalists, especially after how vocal he was about his atheism on the BS series and in his real life outside of that show too. > > Just seen Penn on celebrity wife swap, it’s interesting how his kids reacted to a religious person in their house, it all seemed so foreign to them and it was. The little girl especially amused me when she innocently asked the woman about her little prayer ritual at eating time, “why do you have a napkin on top of your head?” The Kimmel hoax was only possible because of news media not properly vetting tweets and trusting them as a valid sources. Captain Jenks from the Howard Stern show duped countless networks with his calls to them during breaking news events. Had they done due diligence and tried to verify who they had on the phone, they could have easily avoided being fooled. Penn Jillette is a sound and logical voice of Libertarianism, even in the instances when I am in disagreement with him, I still respect how he makes his points. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/24 "2014-07-04T18:27:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > A harmless scholarly or scholastic hoax can be much more than okay: it can be wonderful and funny and witty and educational. IMHO, no. Justification of the destrictive tendancies of ‘hoaxes’ (what some people cough up as humor) isn’t something that I agree with. Its the opposite of wonderful… its an exercise of mental illness that desensitizes the public to the illness, and reinforces that the illness is somehow acceptable. It tears something of value built with hard work down, and it leaves nothing of value in place of what it destroys. Its barely a half-step removed from the knock-out game, where the accessory hides in the bushes with a camcorder to try to shill for Youtube hits later. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/25 "2014-07-04T19:03:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not true. To use a classic example, if you know where some Jews are hiding from the Nazis, it’s virtuous to lie to the Nazis about whether or not you know where any Jews are. Godwin’s Law, in post #6. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/26 "2014-07-04T20:15:51Z")
Since I am Santa, there is no hoax being fostered on children. [![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nsqaIeXsxEE/UmS8rwhRptI/AAAAAAAA-7Y/uzmsAp-IqcE/s2048/Santawithagunsmall.jpg) ](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nsqaIeXsxEE/UmS8rwhRptI/AAAAAAAA-7Y/uzmsAp-IqcE/s2048/Santawithagunsmall.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/27 "2014-07-04T22:33:10Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > IMHO, no. > > Justification of the destrictive tendancies of ‘hoaxes’ (what some people cough up as humor) isn’t something that I agree with. Its the opposite of wonderful… its an exercise of mental illness that desensitizes the public to the illness, and reinforces that the illness is somehow acceptable. > > It tears something of value built with hard work down, and it leaves nothing of value in place of what it destroys. Its barely a half-step removed from the knock-out game, where the accessory hides in the bushes with a camcorder to try to shill for Youtube hits later. Well, to be sure, there is such a thing as taking it too far. The telephone hoaxes perpetrated by morning radio show hosts have often crossed that line. But a more abstract and scholastic hoax, especially the kind that involve some real elegance in composition, are (in my opinion) sometimes really good stuff. [Rolfe Humphries’ submission to Poetry Magazine in June of 1939](http://www.unexplainable.net/true-stories/the_greatest_literary_prank_of_all_time.php) is held by many to be the best ever literary hoax. One might say that it crosses the line in its very direct rude name-calling, but the target was a college president and nobel prize winner, so I think he can take a bit of ribbing, and the actual poem is – well, it’s a GRAND example of the turgid, gasping, classical invocations of extremely bad university poetry-class poetry. (If I ever get published – ha! – you may be sure there will be hidden messages in my text!) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309/28 "2014-07-04T22:39:46Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Godwin’s Law, in post #6. Not quite; he didn’t compare the opposing view to Nazism, only noted (truly) that the Nazis are such really bad people that lesser wrongs, to thwart them, become right again. Godwin’s Law applies when someone says, “Well, the Nazis said the same thing you just said.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-ethical-to-perpetrate-a-hoax/692309.md?page=1)