2014 was a banner year for garbage lies on the Internet in general, but anyone with a Facebook account knows it was a particularly strong one for racist, garbage lies. Here's a look back at just some of this year's most vile viral whoppers, which, in their own small way, each helped spread bigotry and prejudice.

Image via Twitter

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This viral photo of "the real Michael Brown" was first debunked back in August, when a Kansas City police officer shared it with the caption, "I'm sure young Michael Brown is innocent and just misunderstood. I'm sure he is a pillar of the Ferguson community."

In reality, the picture shows Joda Cain, an accused murderer from half a country away. But just like a widely-circulated photo of Trayvon Martin that actually showed the rapper Game, this false image was just too convenient to give up for the racists who see all black teens as Boyz n the Hood extras.

Almost four months later, it's still going strong.

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Islamophobes thought they had their hands on an IRL Marine Todd story when this tale about a vaguely "Arabic man" refusing to sell a soldier gas hit Facebook, care of the soldier's wife. As you might have expected, it soon came out that it was all a simple misunderstanding and the soldier's wife apologized, but by then the incident had become an online cause célèbre.

However, unlike other viral racist garbage, the consequences of this hoax were directly observable and included an armed protest of the gas station in question, demonstrating the very real dangers of fake Internet bullshit.

Image via Twitter

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Remember this horseshit? Back in September, this picture of Darren Wilson's supposed injuries at the hands of alleged superhuman Michael Brown spread like dumb wildfire on social media, with one Facebook post being shared over 40,000 times.

Naturally, it soon came out that the picture was of a completely different white dude, a motocross rider who broke his "forehead, cheek, nose, jaw and eye socket" in a crash.

After last week's grand jury decision, this photo of Wilson's actual injuries came out, taken shortly after his encounter with Brown.

Image via Twitter and St. Louis County

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Of course, it wasn't just earnest, hopelessly dumb bigots that enflamed America's racist paranoia this year. In July, the alleged satirists at National Report transformed prejudice into pageviews by publishing a multi-part story claiming illegal immigrants had invaded a town on the Texas border.

The absurd story was quickly proven false, but National Report's proprietors were rewarded for their racist hoax anyway, netting over two million hits in that month alone.

Image via Facebook

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Finally comes this hot new racist meme, currently racing through social media and covered in detail this week by Gawker's Adam Weinstein.

Some clever turnip literally edited the phrase "black lives matter" out of the original picture and wrote in "robs a store," making it pretty hard to miss the motive behind this viral lie and the dozens like it in 2014.

Image via Facebook