“My brother traveled there. I’m scared for (his) life. Please help me.”
The desperate plea for information about a relative caught up in the EgyptAir disaster… or was it the Orlando nightclub shooting, or the Istanbul airport bombings?
Photos of a Mexican man have been shared as a victim of all three incidents, among many others, according to an investigation by France24.
His face even made it into a video by the New York Times about the Orlando attack. It has since been removed.
Hoax
Confirming photos shared on social media is a notoriously tricky business. People often post pictures they did not take themselves, sometimes sharing images from unrelated incidents, either by accident or intentionally.
In this man’s case, it seems to be the latter. Speaking to France24, the man, who has not been named, said “my photo is everywhere because of someone who started it as a prank after a legal dispute.” He didn’t deny that he’d been caught up in legal proceedings.
The French network contacted some people who shared the man’s photo. They all said that he had “cheated them out of money,” and posting his image in relation to terror attacks was a sort of revenge.
“Our goal is to ruin his reputation. We want the whole world to recognize his face,” one said.
While the man has due cause to sue those who are attempting to smear him, he told France24 “in Mexico, nothing ever happens in these kind of cases.”
Taken in
While several outlets, such as BuzzFeed and the BBC, saw through the charade and attempted to expose it — and many media organizations did not post the man’s photo at all — many users on social media were taken in by his supposed relatives’ expressions of grief.
“Praying for you and your family,” one user posted, while others attempted to warn people away from the fake.
“Look at his other tweets — this dude is a lying fraud. Disgusting.”
They wouldn’t be the first to be fooled by images shared on Twitter. Trolls successfully got presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump to share photos of their supposed Trump-fan parents… actually UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and serial killers Fred and Rose West.
