Except this never happened, and not a word of it is true.But you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you had come across a story to this effect on one of a growing number of fake news websites heavily punted on social media, particularly Facebook.These sites post completely untrue stories or, at best, heavily plagiarised articles from established news organisations. Experts say they blur the lines between fact and fiction, prey on South Africans' gullibility and are set up with one thing in mind: money.Mabulu, whose five-minute conversation with the Sunday Times on Friday proved that he was alive, said these websites - including Africannewsupdates.com, which published the fake story about his murder - were unfair."My friend saw the story on social media. He called me but I was doing interviews so I couldn't answer. Only once he called my wife did he find out that nothing had happened," he said.The fake news story appeared in the wake of the controversy over his latest painting, which pictures President Jacob Zuma performing a sex act on a member of the Gupta family. By Friday afternoon the Facebook link had been shared 270 times and commented on 33 times.Other high-profile South Africans to fall victim to such sites are DJ Black Coffee, said to have died in a European hotel room, and Judge Thokozile Mapisa, whose car was reported to have been torched after she sentenced Oscar Pistorius to six years in prison.Not even Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has been immune.A site reported this month that Motshekga would increase children's years of schooling to 25. The report was shared so widely that her department issued a denial.Digital marketing consultant Alex Wright said: "It's simple traffic. The more traffic you generate, the more money you stand to make. The most sensational content creates the most hype on social media, whether true or false."These guys will be getting most of their traffic from social referrals. Every time a page loads they get paid, albeit a nominal or minimal fee. Multiply this thousands of times over and they can make decent amounts of money."Arthur Goldstuck, CEO of World Wide Worx, said "sham sites" had a dark side."Attention leads to traffic, which potentially leads to advertising. The danger is that some of the fake news reports can go viral through a few gullible individuals falling for them and spreading them via social media. This can lead to unintended consequences, like violent responses or even mob justice," he said.Wright said other dangers included the harm done to someone's reputation - and there were wider implications."The overall risk is that the internet becomes awash with sensationalism. Facts become distorted propaganda and the truth becomes less valuable. Perception is everything and if there is enough emotional charge behind any fake story it can build into national and international news, which is a hard thing to take back."People don't like to dig or research information any more. They are taking these things as fact," he said...