Remember ICQ? The Chat Pioneer Turned 20 This Year

Fuck no! IRC turned 23 this year (with a 4 year gestation period, so you could also count it 27 year old).

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459

And before IRC, there were the real chat pioneers, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat#History

Is that what you call Fake News? I call that just false, wrong and history rewriting!