The alleged death of jazz bassist Gary Peacock this morning is a case study in how disinformation spreads like wildfire on the Internet. The original tweet and FB post was made by genius drummer Jack DeJohnette, who has played with Gary for decades in the Keith Jarrett Trio, so it was certainly coming from a trustworthy source. Other major jazz players, like Dave Holland and Ethan Iverson, picked it up, which then triggered a wave of mourning on jazz blogs worldwide. Even Gary's ex-wife Annette tweeted about it, and Gary's death was added to his Wikipedia entry. But then Jack (bless him, I'm sure he's going through difficult stuff about this) just deleted his tweet without explanation, and the info was removed from Wikipedia. Then people started doing Google searches and came up with a story about the "Gary Peacock death hoax" from a totally untrustworthy website. So the wave of mourning was interrupted by people claiming that it was all a hoax and pointing to some absurd website. Then people started saying, "Even Gary's wife tweeted that it was a hoax!" -- which she didn't; she said it "may be" a hoax. I asked DeJohnette to please clarify on his FB page, but my post was quickly deleted. So no one knows what's going on, and I'm sure this is all terribly difficult for Gary's family and colleagues. And that, my friends, is one reason why the world is in a terrible state these days. I wish the best to Gary, Jack, and their families and friends.