Don’t feel bad if you got taken in by these hoaxes. Ok, actually, do. Source: Supplied

It’s not all our fault. If the same hoax pops up on our Facebook News Feed enough times, we become inclined to believe it’s actually true, according to Cabell Gathman of The Daily Dot. And social media certainly makes it easy to get fake news in front of a lot of eyeballs, whose attached humans aren’t always willing to question a story’s legitimacy before passing it on.

What we really need to do is hone our lie detectors. So let’s take a look at the year’s totally fake stories, realise what we missed and try to do better at weeding out the hoaxes in 2015.

Hoax #1: This status update keeps your Facebook photos safe!

After Facebook changed its terms and conditions earlier this month, a bunch of people started copying and pasting the same status update on their profiles. The post, written in fake legalese, supposedly reclaimed the rights to any images, videos or words the user uploaded to Facebook.

But no matter how many times hoaxes like this one run amok, status updates can’t help you. Even if Facebook users could retroactively change the terms they agreed to when signing up for the site, the gibberish “legal” text so widely shared wouldn’t do it. Also, Facebook doesn’t own any copyright of your stuff anyway.

Macaulay Culkin still alive and kicking. Source: Supplied

Hoax #2: Macaulay Culkin died

According to Snopes, a fake Facebook memorial page for the former child star kicked off this rumour, which quickly spread across the social media site. Fortunately, Macaulay Culkin is very much alive. Since starring in “Richie Rich” and the “Home Alone” saga, Culkin has been touring with his band, Pizza Underground, which replaces Velvet Underground lyrics with “pizza.” Yes, it’s weird. But his newest endeavour is even weirder.

‘Eek, am I supposed to be dead? No one told me.’ Source: Supplied

Hoax #3: Betty White died

On Sept. 2, some horrible people at the satirical site Empire Newsjoked about something that should not be joked about: the death of beloved nonagenarian Betty White. The article, titled “Actress Betty White Dyes Peacefully In Her Los Angeles Home,” received over 2 million Facebook shares. And although we hope a good number of those who shared it realised the word “dyed” in the headline was just wordplay, people on Twitter didn’t seem to get it.

A cracked screen would be the least of your worries if you zapped your microwave. Source: Supplied

Hoax #4: A bunch of people were dumb enough to charge their iPhones in the microwave

A fake Apple advertisement made its way around the internet this fall claiming there was a novel way to charge iPhones: just microwave them. Supposedly, the newest operating system featured the ability to “interface with your device’s radio-baseband allowing it to synchronise with microwave frequencies and use them to recharge your battery.”

It seems unlikely that many people bought it — one guy who tweeted this burnt-up iPhone followed up with another tweet suggesting the photo wasn’t legitimate. Another user claimed to have taken the exact same image. Maybe a few innocent iPhones got scorched “for the lulz,” but it seems pretty far-fetched that this hoax succeeded in persuading the masses to nuke their precious phones.

Woops, wrong Pluto. Source: Supplied

Hoax #5: Pluto is a planet again

We might be forgiven for thinking news articles with headlines like “Wait, what? Pluto a planet again?” and “The People Have Spoken: Pluto is a planet!” (each with tens of thousands of Facebook shares) actually meant that Pluto regained its planetary status. Alas, they were merely referring to an event at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Three physicists debated keeping Pluto as a planet, and when the audience was asked which side had won, they sided with Pluto — obviously. Unfortunately, it’s the International Astronomical Union — not the rest of us — in charge of naming celestial objects. And so, Pluto remains a “dwarf-planet.”

#pay up Source: AFP

Hoax #6: Facebook is going to start charging users

This hoax, almost as old as Facebook itself, apparently still makes the rounds now and then. A satirical report published on a satirical news outlet stating the social media site would begin charging users $2.99 per month to avoid an “unrecoverable financial burden” was shared over 2.3 million times on Facebook after being published in September. Facebook states it will never charge users — the site makes money by selling ads.

Banksy Girls Red Balloon Wall Decal. Source: Supplied

Hoax #7: Banksy got arrested

During his or her New York City rampage, rumours started circulating that the famously secretive street artist had been arrested. While we’re all curious to know Banksy’s real identity, the rumour was just another case of people not realising The National Report is about as factual as The Onion. The real Banksy remains free to plaster graffiti on underappreciated corners of urban landscapes the world over. So far as we know.

The best use for lemon rind. Source: News Corp Australia

Hoax #8: Lemon rinds destroy cancer

That is just one of the many, many silly claims made by the surprisingly non-satirical website Natural News — many of which end up getting hundreds of thousands of Facebook shares. The site, run by “health ranger” Mike Adams, feeds conspiracy theories and publishes articles on alternative medicines. In terms of sources, it’s pretty far from reputable. We don’t have time or space to go over every misconceived headline now, but Slate dissects a few of Natural News’ more grievous errors here.

Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, and Britain's Prince William visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museumon December 9, 2014. Source: AP

Hoax #9: 9/11 didn’t really happen

This is a hoax that just won’t die. In 2014, it appeared in an article claiming a video shows “irrefutable proof” that zero planes actually hit the World Trade Center. The article garnered over 380,000 Facebook shares, even though its basic claims proved fairly easy to dismantle. While we hope most people posted to simply poke fun at 9/11 truthers, we can’t be certain.

Hoax #10: This is Darren Wilson

In the weeks after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by police officer Darren Wilson, a photo emerged purportedly showing Wilson’s injuries after a scuffle with Brown. It wasn’t him. The photo, taken back in 2006, shows motocross rider Jim McNeil in the hospital with injuries from an accident. These are Wilson’s injuries from the day he killed Brown.

Ridiculously good-looking criminal. Source: Supplied

Hoax #11: This good-looking convict is going to be a model!

A couple weeks after his mug shot went viral after getting posted to Facebook, “hot convict” Jeremy Meeks reportedly signed a $30,000 modelling contract with Blaze Modelz. Later it was determined that the reports weren’t based in any sort of fact, but that was too late to stop rumour mill.

This article originally appeared in The Huffington Post.