Instagram Copyright Hoax
Various high-profile people fell for an old, fake “notice” against Instagram that has circulated online since 2012.
‘YesJuliet’ Instagram Murder Rumors
On July 14 2019, rumors began spreading on Instagram, Reddit, Discord, 4Chan, Twitter, and other social media sites about purported disturbing posts shared by Instagram user @YesJuliet about an alleged murder of a 17-year-old girl named Bianca Devins (@escty and @beegtfo.) Disturbing images were shared to 4Chan’s /pol/ board (archived here), and a longer thread updating …
Scams and Hoax Accounts Proliferate on Instagram
April 2019 saw the culmination of a months-long popular uprising in the country of Sudan, when its former president Omar al-Bashir stepped down from his post. The Sudanese military quickly took control of the country in what it called a transitional phase. In the weeks following al-Bashir’s ouster, however, clashes became both deadlier and more …
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Does This Picture Show the ‘Youngest Parents in the World’?
On February 26 2019, a Facebook user shared the following post (archived here), purportedly showing the world’s youngest parents: Aside from a caption (“Man Wtf????”), no included information explained how the original poster had divined this information from a single photograph. Nevertheless, the image accrued tens of thousands of shares. Commenters on the image were …
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‘Bit Windy Today’ Wind Turbine Failure Video
On February 22 2019, the Facebook page “What did I just see?” shared a video (linked here) captioned “Bit windy today,” purportedly depicting the failure of a wind turbine during an intense weather event: The clip quickly spiked to millions of views and over 100,000 shares, and commenters were divided over whether it was authentic …
Did a Medical Scan of an 80-Year-Old Woman Reveal a Calcified Fetus?
On December 11, 2018, a Facebook user shared the following image and caption purportedly showing a genuine calcified fetus: 80 year old lady [emoji], went to have a cat-scan, and they found a fetus that’s been in her cervix for 30 years The referenced phenomenon (a calcified fetus or lithopedion) is real, but many readers …
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Was Facebook Selling Users’ Photos to Advertisers?
Concerns over what the social media platform was doing with user-generated content in 2011 turned out to be prescient in the long run.