News that Steve Jobs had suffered a “heart attack” swirled around the internet at the beginning of the month, triggering a 5.4% drop in Apple’s share price and causing panic among Apple fans and quite a few tears from more emotional hardware enthusiasts. Only he didn’t have a heart attack. It was a lie. A joke.

The not particularly hilarious “joke” was posted as news by an 18-year-old on “citizen journalist” site iReport, triggering a full investigation by the US government’s Securities and Exchange Commission after it hit Apple’s share price rather hard…