The glitch in the transformation of the last Olympic ring during the Opening Ceremony for the 2014 Winter Olympics is rumored of sparking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anger; resulting in the supposed murder of T. Borris Avdevev, the man in charge of the glitch.

However, during the Opening Ceremony glitch, a Russian channel quickly caught on and instead aired a scene from the rehearsal, in which the rings opened flawlessly. While this choice created a large amount of controversy over whether a cover-up was ethical, this is not one of the most prominent reactions to the mishap.

The Daily Currant, an American satirical news blog in competition to The Onion, posted on Saturday a false report that the body of T. Borris Avdeyev was found in his hotel room with multiple stab wounds. The article, packed with obvious satire, claimed that a lead investigator blamed the stab wounds on Avdeyev “falling on knives.”

Yet despite the obvious satire, the report went viral.

Many of the people sharing the hoax understood its satirical purpose, but still succeeded in spreading it to those who thought it to be real. Technically, the report is not illegal, as obvious satire cannot be held because of libel or any other legal issue. However, this report may have still created numerous problems.

First off, what do reports like this say about us as Americans? Many people believed this hoax and even became angry with the Russian government for covering up a murder. Yet they jumped to these conclusions without even thinking to pick up a phone or computer to do research.

At first, I thought this report had a little truth, yet I still recognized the issues contained in it. Before sitting down to write this article, I researched the issue. After ten minutes of searching, I didn’t find a single credible report on the murder but found two or three articles stating that it was a hoax. That alone should clue us in.

But it didn’t.

Furthermore, what does it say about us as a nation? Writing a satirical report which insults our own president, fine. We’re a republic, they say. Free speech, they say. But what about writing a false report that ultimately criminalizes a president from a nation already questioned?

This can’t have good repercussions.