Hundreds of angry fans of 'Orange is the New Black', the comedy drama television series on Netflix, bombarded social media sites with posts and tweets when Empire News published a report claiming that Season 3 of the show has been cancelled. Flames were further fueled when the report mentioned that Netflix would be deleting the first two seasons permanently as well.

The Empire News' report seems to have quoted Reed Hastings, Netfix founder and CEO, saying that he wanted more male leads on the show and that he can't believe anyone would watch it.

Hastings supposedly told the website, "A woman's place is in the home, in the kitchen, taking care of children. A woman in jail? How does anyone even watch this show in the first place? It's like we took everything bad about OZ and make [sic] this show with the leftovers."

As the news spread, many who read the article tweeted Netflix warning that they would cancel their subscriptions, but the news turned out to be yet another hoax.

In fact, Empire News acknowledges that it is a "satirical and entertainment website," which only uses invented names in its stories, "except in cases when public figures are being satirised".

Earlier too, the website carried articles that intended to shock people and sometimes even make them laugh. Some of the news headlines on the site read like "Colorado becomes first state to legalize crystal meth," and "Pennsylvania Burger Kind manager fired for eating a Big Mac."

Notwithstanding the disclaimer, the outrage shown by the fans against the cancellation of 'Orange is the New Black', which has won 13 Emmy Award nominations early this month, forced Netflix to respond to the hoax by tweeting, "Don't worry, dandelions! @OITNB is not cancelled," it tweeted, with a link to the Instagram account documenting the current production of the show's third season, while the show's official Twitter account said, "Whoever started this rumor will be spending some time in the SHU."

However, this did not pacify the fans and, as a result, Netflix sent out another tweet some hours later showing Danielle Brooks, who portrays the character of Tasha Jefferson, and Uzo Abuda, who plays the role of Suzanne Warren, in Season 3 of the show.