People really liked what they thought were Morgan Freeman's words of wisdom on the media and its coverage of the Newtown shooting. The question now: Will they still like them knowing that Freeman didn't actually say them? Speaking through his publicist, Freeman denied making any statement regarding the shootings. "He said the actor’s camp was trying to determine the origin of the hoax statement," reported The Wrap's Todd Cunningham. If you were on Facebook or Twitter over the past two days, you probably saw some permutation of this meme being shared:

The fake Freeman quotes are slightly reminiscent of the fake Martin Luther King Jr. quote passed around when Osama bin Laden was killed — if for no other reason that it's still being passed around on Twitter even as it's being debunked. (It's okay. Piers Morgan were fooled, too.) According to the meme masters at Reddit, it looks like this viral game of telephone started from a man named Mark: 

Again, this is just one source, so take this admission from a Redditor with a grain of salt:

Nothing's really funny about the Newtown shootings. But if you're looking for a comforting voice of authority, well, Freeman's is a famous one. But will take his denial on good authority, too.

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Alexander Abad-Santos