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Stone pelters attacked Amarnath Yatra: How FAKE NEWS is spread

Saudi Prince losing $350 million and 5 wives in 6 hours in a casino took the internet by storm, it turned to be a hoax. There is tremendous surge in the virality of fake news, in India and the world.

American president Donald Trump’s popularity was accredited to the spread of fake news, to the point that Facebook had to intervene, and Gujarat’s photoshop “development” story is no secret.

The annual Amarnath Yatra is scheduled to begin on June 29 and will end on August 7. Bookings for the pilgrimage have already begun. Will fake news regarding how militants in the valley are planning to attack the victims this year spread again?

Have a look at this screenshot for instance.

 

Does this look like a real story?

No? Then you’re smarter than a lot of other people on the Internet.

But many readers are not as smart as you. People often read the headlines of such stories and share it directly on social media and they look as genuine as the real news. Have a look at the thumbnail of the post when we shared it on Facebook.

 

Looks pretty real right?

 

What’s fake in this story?

1. No such thing has happened this year. In fact, the Yatra hasn’t even started yet.

2. The content is made up.

3. The image used in the story is a random image of stone-pelting in Kashmir.

 

So what did we do there?

  1. Got  some controversial content.
  2. Found a related image to it (or just pick a random image which sets the mood of the story)
  3.  Pick the website to upload it. In this case we have used http://channel23news.com to create one fake story.
  4. Publish it and share it on social media like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp as real news.

 

There are hundreds of such websites which allow users to create fake stories to prank friends, but of course, it can also be used for creating WhatsApp and Facebook hoaxes . One website – http://newspaper.jaguarpaw.co.uk/ allows a user to create a fake newspaper cutting with a name, headline and images.

Lets see another fake news which is widely circulated. (Some news channels do this for real too.)

Hindustan Times – Who wouldn’t believe it right?

What if I tell you that this is a fake story and yes, we created it. And we also have the link to substantiate it.

Click on http://bit.ly/2reJrFv and you will see this story live.

Slide left and right to see the fake and real story.

Mind blown already? All this can be done in one click and shared as screenshot on WhatsApp and various other social media platforms as to push political agendas.

 

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