Mail Online - Claimed Inaccuracies

Claimed Inaccuracies

• September 2009: Geek.com reported that a story posted in MailOnline about a solar panel made from human hair was a hoax. Engineer Edward Craig Hyatt stated that it was not possible to use human hair in any configuration to generate electricity when exposed to light.
• June 2010: The Guardian reported that MailOnline had published an inaccurate story about an iPhone 4 recall, based on a Twitter message from a parody account by a Steve Jobs impersonator. MailOnline realised its error and removed the article.
• In October 2011, MailOnline and several other news sources published standby articles on Amanda Knox's trial prematurely. The articles reported an upholding of the guilty verdict before the judge had finished announcing the reversal of the guilty verdict. Mail Online stated the article was removed within 90 seconds and apologized. The article became the subject of a Press Complaints Commission complaint that noted the article's reporting of events and reactions that had not taken place and said that was "not acceptable" but commented positively on the handling of the error.
• January 2012: ABC News Radio reported the falsity of a story "repeated by numerous media outlets" concerning a supposed naming by Advertising Age of a campaign by singer Rihanna for fashion house Armani as the "sexiest ad of the year." The story, Ad Age said, "seemed to have originated with the British tabloid the Daily Mail. Huffington Post removed the story and apologized.
• January 2012: Robert Hart-Fletcher, of the charity "Kids and Media", told BeefJack, a gaming magazine, that quotes attributed to him were "completely fabricated" across a range of British media, most prominently the Daily Mail and the BBC.
• April 2012: MailOnline published an article about a dentist who extracted her ex-boyfriend's teeth; the piece was later exposed as a hoax by MSNBC.com. The article appeared under the byline of reporter Simon Tomlinson, who said he does not know where the story came from.
• April 2012: The Christian Science Monitor reported that MailOnline had misused an opinion piece published in Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper and translated into English by Al Arabiyah. The original article claimed "Egypt's parliament was considering a piece of legislation sponsored by Islamists to allow men to have sex with their wives after their death." The Daily Mail, wrote Monitor staff writer Dan Murphy, "distorted the original claim from a proposal to a done deal: 'Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives', the tabloid claimed, apparently having misunderstood the original Al Arabiya translation. "
• October 2012: Actor Nicolas Cage received an apology and damages for a false story in Mail Online about allegations of tax evasion.