The article attempts to systematize the devices and tactics of speech manipulation typical of fake viral texts. It describes linguistic features of electronic texts of the first year of COVID-19 pandemic, identifies the differences between viral text and fake viral text. It generalizes presented in the current academic literature methods of identification of fakes, among which the most relevant for the present research markers and indicators are selected. The article also analyzes the approaches to the definition of strategies and tactics offered by modern linguists. It is concluded that communicative technologies are the most urgent for the analysis of the complex of speech manipulation strategies in electronic text, which are understood as the body of split-level devices and methods of producing communicative impact on the recipient aimed at achieving the intended purposes of communication. Based on the analysis of the factual material, texts of fake viral postings of the first year of COVID-19 pandemic, the most widespread combinations of devices are detected, which are classified by the authors as models typical of fake viral postings devoted to the topic of coronavirus pandemic. The totality of the detected models comprises the system of speech manipulation strategies typical of fake viral text. Further research of the corpora of electronic texts on various topics will allow identifying speech manipulation strategies typical of separate genres of electronic text.