An article titled ‘Wuhan: Thousands of mosquitoes inoculated with Viagra escape from high-security laboratory’, which was published by a satirical website World News Daily Report, was shared on social media as real news.
CLAIM
The link was shared by many users with different claims, which varied from expressing frustration to blaming China for “spreading a new health issue”.
An archived version of this claim can be seen here.
(Photo: Twitter/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND
On checking the credentials of the website, we found a disclaimer which states that the content on the website is “satirical” in nature.
The disclaimer reads, “World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.”
Additionally, the website’s disclaimer section’s ‘Legal Notice’ reads that “Information contained in this World News Daily Report website is for information and entertainment purposes only”.
The article mentions a ‘Dr Wenzi Ying Yin Jing’, who is the head researcher at the institute. The institute's website does not mention any such person on their team. The satirical piece also uses the photograph of an ‘87-year-old man’, who they claimed to have been bit by one of the inoculated mosquitoes.
However, this image is of Yukishi Chuganji, a Japanese businessperson who passed away in 2003 at age 114. Chuganji was one of the oldest people in the world when he died. We also found his photo on Getty Images.
Evidently, a satirical piece was shared as real news by multiple users on social media.
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