False reports of the deaths of Lil Wayne and Wiley - both made possible by a website, Kinetic North, which enables users to create fake BBC news reports – throws light on one of the internet age's less edifying legacies: the celebrity death hoax.

The concept is nothing new, of course. In October 1969, a US radio item referring to the "late Paul McCartney" spread like wildfire, to the extent that Macca felt compelled to comment on the 'Paul is dead' theory years later, via the tongue-in-cheek cover artwork of his 1993 live album, 'Paul Is Live'.

What's changed in recent times is the sheer speed at which a death hoax, powered by 24-hour news channels and unaccountable bloggers, can ricochet around the planet.

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In May 2006, Dave Grohl appeared on the cover of NME alongside the cover line "I'm not dead!" The Foo Fighters frontman had been the victim of an internet hoax, perpetrated by a 16-year-old, Daniel O'Sullivan, which gained widespread credence.

Pretty funny, you think – until you find out Grohl's wife received voice mail messages from grieving friends saying "I'm sorry Dave died". Ultimately, Grohl laughed it off, but it must have been an unsettling experience.

Whether or not a fake story takes hold often depends on the level of detail involved. On December 17, 2000, a website purporting to be CNN.com reported that Eminem had died in a drink-drive car crash at precisely 2.30am, on his way to a party. He was driving a Saturn Coupe, apparently. All utter bollocks.

As was the story, widely reported in May 2001, that Lou Reed had been found dead in his apartment after taking an overdose of the painkiller Demerol – a ruse echoed three years later, when Michael Jackson supposedly committed suicide by "consuming more than two-dozen sleeping pills".

My problem with these hoaxes, aside from their childish cruelty, is that the internet age makes them too easy to pull off. These days anyone with Photoshop can style up a news report to look convincing, or doctor a Wikipedia entry. Where's the challenge?

More importantly, few hoaxers bother to inject any humour into their pranks, which surely ought to be the point of the exercise. When, for example, Chris Morris broadcast false news of the death of Michael Heseltine on Radio 1, he mined the incident for comic potential, asking The Jam's Bruce Foxton which bassline might make a suitable epitaph for the Conservative MP. Morris received a two-week suspension.

By comparison, you can't help thinking today's internet hoaxers just aren't making the effort.