RIP Facebook became a trending topic early Saturday, with several Twitter users poking fun at the false declaration that the rival social-networking site was dead.

Twitter is an online social-networking and microblogging site that allows its users to send and read posts of as many as 140 characters. These text-based posts are known as tweets. Jack Dorsey created Twitter in March 2006 and launched it that July. Last year, Twitter had more than 300 million users. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco.

Facebook is also a social-networking site, and the Web site was launched in February 2004. Facebook Inc. has more than 800 million active users, and they are able to create personal profiles, friend other users, exchange messages, and more. Facebook was co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg, along with his college roommates and schoolmates Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

It is uncertain how RIP Facebook became a trending topic on Twitter, but it may have started after a news report from a coroner called for Facebook to enforce an embargo on RIP messages that are being left on the pages of deceased users.

Herald.ie reported that the call from the coroner resulted after a woman found out about her brother's death through the social-networking site. That report noted that Noreen Mallon was trying to contact her brother Paul Carthy, 29, of Woodside Park, Kildare, County Kildare, Ireland, before her daughter read on Facebook that a body was found in Kildare. The family feared it was their loved one.

This has been the second or third incident of this kind I have dealt with in recent months involving families finding out tragic news through Facebook, said the coroner, Dr. Denis Cusack, at Naas Courthouse. It really is a shocking way for someone to be informed of a loved one's death.

It would be worthwhile to look into an embargo on such Web sites that would protect family and loved ones from learning news of this nature in this way, he added.

A man walking his dog found Carthy's body in the morning of last Oct. 2 on the grounds of Round Towers GAA Club in Kildare, Herald.ie reported.

While Twitter users weren't making fun of someone's actual death, they seemed to have started the trending topic to generate a few laughs among each other about the possibility of Facebook, their rival, no longer operating. Some claimed that Facebook's site was having issues earlier in the morning, which sparked the trend.

Here are some of the funniest Twitter responses to the RIP Facebook trending topic on the microblogging site:

-- RIP Facebook. But if Facebook closes down, all the people from facebook will come to twitter. Omg. No. -- Bella & Zendaya.?

-- Many people seem worried that RIP Facebook would mean twitter would be full of annoying people. I have news for you: THEY'RE ALREADY HERE. -- Richard Nelson

-- RIP Facebook: I've left you for Twitter and Tumblr, it's not you it's me (it's really you). Can we still be friends, though? -- *Mimi*

-- RIP Facebook ... Finally It's Dead after all the changes it done to it self .. Byee - Åßî ? ♥

-- RIP Facebook? How are people gonna stalk each other now... -- Kasia Sekut

-- I love Twitter more than Facebook cause I can update my status every 5 minutes without people thinking I'm crazy. RIP Facebook -- Funny Facts

-- RIP Facebook. Finally, twitter killed the right thing. -- Until the very end ♥

-- RIP Facebook. (R)eturn (I)f (P)ossible Facebook. -- Ryan ?

-- #RIP Facebook just sent somebody into a coma.. that's all some people live for sad but true -- lotusflowerbomb

-- RIP Facebook.....it's been dead for about a yr to me -- TJ Romano

-- RIP Facebook? Well, as long as I've got Twitter I'm okay. -- Tobey | Lady Gaga

-- I like how the trend RIP Facebook is full of annoying people saying that the annoying people will move here. There's no need. YOU ARE THEM -- Matthew Riley

-- RIP Facebook - if only! It is a hideoulsy invasive globule of irrepresible narcissism! -- Noxy

-- RIP Facebook. I won't miss you . Nope.. Not even a little bit. -- samantha bray †

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