Question What You Read: “Someone Spoofed Bloomberg’s Website and a Fake Article Made Twitter’s Stock Soar”

For your digital literacy/web credibility folder.

Btw, tools like Twerker (an iOS app) make the page design portion of spoofing web content simple and fast.
From Venture Beat:

A fake “Bloomberg” website that claimed Twitter is the target of a $31 billion acquisition has sent Twitter’s shares soaring.
Hosted on a new Bloomberg.market domain that mimics the real Bloomberg site, the article stated: “Twitter is working closely with bankers after receiving an offer to be bought out for $31 billion, people with knowledge of the situation said.”
Though the article looked genuine enough at a glance, and the story was believable given it was based on previous rumors that Twitter could be acquired by Google, Bloomberg spokesperson Ty Trippet confirmed in a tweet (ironically) that this was a fake story, dispelling any lingering notion that Bloomberg may have introduced the .market domain itself.

Read the Complete Venture Beat Report
Includes the full text of the fake story.
See Also: Another example of a fake news story moving stock prices occurred three years when a news release said  Google was acquiring a wi-fi company (they didn’t) got picked-up as fact by a number of major news outlets and then spread quickly.
See Also: The Seemingly Elaborate Hoax Someone Pulled On Bloomberg and Twitter Wasn’t Actually That Complicated (via Business Insider)

Filed under: News