News of December 30, 2010
Fake Video: Suge Knight Not Arrested Over Tupac
Edited news footage led people to believe in late 2010 that Suge Knight was arrested for Tupac's death. The video was a fake.
At the end of 2010, a video circulated online that looked like a sensation: Suge Knight had allegedly been arrested for Tupac’s killing. It was a fake. As NewsOne reported on December 30, someone had spliced together clips from news broadcasts of two television stations in Los Angeles. One part came from a segment about a documentary on Tupac’s death, while the other showed Knight during an arrest in an entirely different matter.
Half a Million Views and a Facebook Scam
According to IT security expert Graham Cluley, the video had been uploaded to YouTube on December 28; by early January 2011, it counted more than 500,000 views. Scammers exploited the rumor for a scheme on Facebook: anyone who wanted to see the allegedly shocking video was asked to enable an application and fill out a survey. The applications then sent advertisements to the victims’ friends, and the scammers earned money from every survey. More than 125,000 people fell for it, and the scam was also spread via Twitter.
In May 2011, rap.de mentioned the case in the same breath as the false report by hackers that Tupac was living in New Zealand. Charges in the Tupac case were not brought until 2023, specifically against Duane “Keffe D” Davis; his 2026 guilty verdict is not final.