Those 'human meat found in McDonald's factory' stories and Facebook posts are a hoax, obviously

Enough people genuinely thought the chain had turned to cannibalism

Ronald McDonald hasn't been kidnapping children, even though he does look the type (AP)

Facebook has been flooded with hysteria over "reports" of human meat found in McDonald's over the past few weeks, with one much-shared post claiming that their hamburgers are now made out of children.

The rumour goes that the horse meat scandal (which didn't even affect McDonald's) has reached new lows, with human meat being found in "90%" of the chain's restaurants.

This is one of the passages being shared:

"Human Meat Found In McDonald’s Meat Factory.

Previously we brought you a report that detailed disturbing audio admissions by a man that claimed McDonald’s uses human meat as a filler in their 100% beef hamburgers and the fact that McDonald’s has been accused of using worm meat fillers. Now, inspectors have allegedly found human meat and horse meat in the freezer's [sic] of an Oklahoma City McDonald’s meat factory. Human meat was also recovered in several trucks that were on their way to deliver the patties to the restaurants. According to various reports, authorities have inspected factories and restaurants across the country and have found human meat in 90% of the locations. Horse meat was found in 65% of the locations. FBI agent Lloyd Harrison told Huzler reporters, "The worst part is that it’s not only human meat, it’s child meat. The body parts were found across the US factories and were deemed too small to be adult body parts. This is truly horrible."

People were clearly taking notice of it, judging by Google's auto-complete searches for 'human meat'.

But the reports were of course false, stemming from fake news website Huzlers which allows user to "create your own news prank and trick your friends by sharing it."

This is far from the first sensational fake story to do the rounds, earlier in the week there was talk on social media of Ebola victims coming back from the dead as zombies, and last month tons were fooled by a story claiming Breaking Bad would be back for a sixth season.

If you were morbidly curious as to what human meat tastes like though, you can find answers from various serial killers here.