Local Japanese fastfood chain KARATE KID fell victim to a vicious internet meme that circulated over the weekend. A fake site mimicking GMANEWS.TV spread the news that the donburi restaurant’s WALTERMART MAKATI branch — located in front of DON BOSCO TECHNICAL INSTUTUTE — had infected a young boy with the AIDS virus after he had allegedly dined there. The fake article also claimed that one of the restaurant’s kitchen staff was found to be unwittingly infected with AIDS, which led to the accidental spread of the virus.

However, several glaring mistakes could be spotted in the alleged article, leading me to conclude that the article was faked. First of all, the article’s original URL was suspect (the page has since been taken down — a cache version can be found here), because the URL of the genuine GMA NEWS site is GMANEWS.TV. Second, there was a large number of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors in the original article — and no news organization worth its salt would allow unedited articles to tarnish their credibility. This also means that the source article was put together by someone who was obviously not a news writer, which makes the prank angle more plausible.

Last but not least, are the claims as to how the AIDS virus spread from the carrier to the victim. If the fry cook really was infected, and that his blood had somehow gotten to the food, it is a well-established fact that the AIDS virus cannot survive outside of an optimum temperature range that is close to human body temperature. A soak in a deep fat fryer would certainly kill it. The most sure-fire methods to give and get AIDS would be: 1) blood transfusions; 2) drug users sharing infected needles; and 3) sexual contact. All three methods would require quite a stretch of imagination when considering our boy student and our kitchen staffer.

So what’s the lesson here, kids? Simple: don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.