The internet is all ablaze with updates and breaking news about the woman who gave birth to octuplets, or as we might be more used to thinking about it, a litter. The woman, who is still anonymous, was first thought to be a young woman in her early 20s. Later, sources (not quite sure who they are or what it takes to be a “source” these days) claimed she was around 33 years old.

After the dispute over her age, the next big topic was her relationship with the father. It was reported that he was an Iraqi native, then a war vet, then a contractor hired to work in Iraq–either way, people were giving him an Iraq connection. Well the latest news seems to be that it’s not the father of the babies, but rather the father of the mother (or the litter’s grandfather if you need clarification) that’s heading to Iraq, allegedly to earn money to raise his daughter’s 47 million kids.

Of course, there is also the revelation that the mother already had six kids, so the addition of the new eight brings her total to 14. There have also been reports that a few of the six were twins/multiple births, but I’ve only seen that on one or two sites, so it doesn’t seem to have gone through the rigorous fact-checking that the rest of this “news” had to pass.

There are now reports that the whole thing happened via sperm donor and that the mother could be a mentally ill woman who tricked a doctor into helping her get pregnant because of her obsession with children.

I’m writing all this down to illustrate the way that the internet spins things completely out of control. Whoever has the most recent post is the most credible source and everyone can write something different, saying they don’t want to reveal their sources. Just take a look at some of the gaping holes and complete inaccuracies in Wikipedia, the supposed repository for all knowledge, and you should start to think twice about the “facts” on the internet.

I don’t know why the world is so fascinated with this woman in the first place, let alone to the point where everyone needs to make up the most amazing breaking news about her.