Modern War of the Worlds

Everyone knows this story about radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’s novel about alien invasion of the Earth:

Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast, and in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety just prior to World War II, took it to be a news broadcast. Newspapers reported that panic ensued, people fleeing the area, others thinking they could smell poison gas or could see flashes of lightning in the distance.

Richard J. Hand cites studies by unnamed historians who "calculate[d] that some six million heard the CBS broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened'". While Welles and company were heard by a comparatively small audience (in the same period, NBC's audience was an estimated 30 million), the uproar was anything but minute: within a month, there were 12,500 newspaper articles about the broadcast or its impact, while Adolf Hitler cited the panic, as Hand writes, as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy."

Now see here:

Moscow — Millions of Georgians wrongly thought their country was being invaded after a spoof prime time news broadcast showed Russian tanks heading towards the capital Tbilisi and said the president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been killed.

The spoof was broadcast on Imedi, one of Georgia's biggest TV channels, and most viewers missed a brief announcement at the start of the 30 minute broadcast explaining that the news bulletin was a simulation of "the worst day in Georgian history."

An agitated newsreader told shell-shocked viewers that the country's opposition had called in the Russian military to quell political unrest and showed key opposition figures apparently agreeing to work with the invaders.

The bulletin caused panic across the strategically vital former Soviet state which is still struggling to come to terms with fighting and losing a short sharp war against Russia in 2008.

Gripped by panic, mobile phone networks crashed, people started fleeing the capital, crowds rushed to stock up on vital foodstuffs, and there were reports of volunteer fighters preparing to resist. Other TV channels interrupted their own broadcasts to show Imedi's footage and, for a short period, some Russian media began to broadcast the "news."

When Georgians finally realised that the news bulletin was a spoof they were furious. Crowds mobbed Imedi's headquarters and opposition politicians angrily denounced the TV channel which is run by a close ally of the president, Mr Saakashvili.

Typical...