CLAIM
A screenshot of what appears to be a Hindi news report quoting senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal has been doing the rounds on social media.
It claims that Sibal told a London court that liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s extradition to India should not go through at this time as it would have a bearing on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The headline of the post reads: “माल्या को अभी इंडिया मत भेजो, चुनाव पर असर पडे़गा!” -कपिल सिब्बल की लंदन कोर्ट में अर्ज़ी (Don’t send Mallya to India right now, it will have a bearing on the election! - Kapil Sibal’s application in London court)”.
Facebook page नरेंद्र मोदी (Narendra Modi) shared a link to the alleged news article with a similar caption. It had a total engagement exceeding 500 at the time of writing this piece.
The screenshot was originally shared by Facebook page NAMO and had garnered over 13,000 shares, Alt News had reported. It has since been deleted.
It was also shared by several other individual users and groups with similar iterations of this claim.
THE TRUTH
A simple Google search of keywords from the report’s headline revealed that the screenshot is of a post published by satirical news website Faking News on Wednesday, 6 February.
Although the screenshot is authentic, it is misleading as it does not reveal the fact that the content is manufactured for satire.
Interestingly, in addition to cropped screenshots, the actual link to the piece was also widely shared despite it being clear that it is a Faking News post.
NOT THE FIRST TIME
This is not the first time that a satire has been shared as news on social media.
- A ‘report’ by a website called Orange Fox had claimed that demonetisation had tripled the gross domestic product (GDP) of east African country Burundi. The website, Orange Fox, however puts out content that is ‘work of fiction’.
- An article, published by TheFauxy, had claimed that ‘Muslim women had formed a 620 km long queue to pass bricks for constructing the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya’. It had also stated that the wall was sponsored by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. TheFauxy is another satire web portal.
- Another satire article published by Faking News taking aim at Suhana Khan’s Vogue India cover shoot had been lost on several netizens, who had shared the piece believing it to be true.
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