Tweet on Steve Jobs 'death' makes waves in cyberspace

A Twitter message claiming former Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs had died made waves in the online world over the weekend, with the television program that broke the "news" apologizing for the gaffe. The CBS News program "What's Trending" tweeted September 10 that Jobs, who recently quit as CEO for health reasons, had "passed away," UK-based site The Daily Mail reported. "Reports say that Steve Jobs has passed away. Stay tuned for more updates," the Daily Mail quoted the initial tweet, which it said was pulled out almost immediately but was retweeted several times. Shortly after, the show's Twitter account posted an apology: "Apologies- reports of Steve Job's (sic) death completely unconfirmed. Live on." Shira Lazar, the show's host and executive producer, also tweeted an apology. "On behalf of all of us at @disruptgroup we sincerely apologize for the inaccuracy that was tweeted earlier today.-EP/ Host," she said. Despite the apologies, the Daily Mail said the post fueled anew speculation on the state of Jobs' health. Resignation Jobs had made no direct reference to his health problems in his letter of resignation to the Apple board last month. He wrote only that he had always said he would step down as CEO if he felt he could no longer do the job to his high standards. Earlier, Jobs had surgery to remove a tumor after being diagnosed with a rare type of pancreatic cancer in 2003. A separate report on PC Magazine said the erroneous tweet virtually spelled the "death" of the Web show's affiliation with CBSNews.com. PC Mag cited sources speaking to The Hollywood Report that CBS executives began the process of distancing the company from the What's Trending show that day. "The show has since been removed from the company's website, and CBS has ended its relationship with What's Trending and its 28-year-old creator and executive producer Shira Lazar," it said. — RSJ, GMA News