Wave of ‘fake news’ spreads online after UK terror attack

One Twitter post contained a montage of photos of people, implying they were all missing — but many were not even at the concert in Manchester.

LONDON: The best and worst of social media were on show in the aftermath of the deadly terror attack in Manchester, England on Monday night.
At least 22 people were killed in the attack, with many more missing and dozens injured.
Desperate parents and friends posted heart-wrenching messages and pictures on social media in the search for their loved ones on Tuesday, after the suicide bomb at a concert by US singer Ariana Grande.
In the hours after the blast, picture montages of smiling faces were being circulated of teens still unaccounted for after the concert.
Yet not all of those posting images online were genuine.
One image, by a Twitter user who goes by the name ‘Caroline’, contained a montage of photos of people, implying that they were all missing.
But as fellow users observed, several of the people in the image were not at the concert or indeed on the same continent.
The Mexico-based journalist Andrea Noel, whose image was included in the montage, turned to Twitter to correct the misconception: “Dude, this photo is fake. I’m not missing,” she wrote.
More disturbingly, the montage also included an image of 17-year-old Jayden Parkinson, who was murdered four years ago.
Parkinson’s mother Samantha Shrewsbury tweeted the photo, saying she was not happy that her daughter’s picture had been used.
“My murdered daughter’s picture used she was killed almost 4 years ago not last night,” she wrote.
Shrewsbury told the BBC that her phone has not stopped ringing since the appearance of her daughter’s photo in the collage.
“People keep telling me that Jayden’s picture was being circulated as one of the Manchester attack victims. It is horrible to see her picture being used in this way,” she said. “I feel sorry for the genuine parents of missing children.”
Many other social-media users posted “fake news” items about the Manchester bombings. The true motives are not known, but some speculate that the retweets and exposure gained could be behind it: Caroline’s tweet with the misleading photo montage was retweeted more than 14,000 times.
Another Twitter user shared an image of his “little brother Frank” saying he was missing after the concert. But some who commented on the post said it was taken several years ago, and was of a young boy who modeled for a fashion line for people with Down Syndrome, according to the BBC.
Fake reports also circulated about a man with a gun outside a nearby hospital. But that reportedly originated from a single Facebook post that had been shared more than 13,000 times.
The post reportedly read: “DO NOT COME to Oldham Hospital I’m currently inside… Man outside with GUN.”
Several mainstream media outlets regurgitated the fake news story, but local police and authorities refuted the claims.
Other posts also purported to show Ariana Grande backstage after the explosion — but the image apparently dated to a filmset back in 2015.