Parody Account Falsely Quotes Journalist Ayyub Rana Defending Child Rapists, Social Media Spreads It As Actual Quote
24 April 2018 9:08 AM GMT
Journalist Rana Ayyub found herself in the midst of a public ire after a parody account @repubIicTv posted a tweet falsely quoting Rana Ayyub. The quote ascribed to Ayyub was “Minor child rapists are also human, do they have no human rights. This Hindutva Government is bringing ordinance for death to child rapists just to hang Muslims in larger numbers. Muslims aren’t safe in India anymore”.
This was retweeted and shared by thousands of people across many social platforms. For instance, one of the Facebook pages named Yogi Adityanath Ki Sena which has more than 4,25,000 followers posted the Hindi translated quote on April 22. This post was shared more than 12,400 times.
60 साल तक बलात्कार पर कोइ कानून नही बना लेकिन तब इन बामपंथी पत्रकारों के मुह से एक शब्द भी नही फूटा, आज जब मोदी सरकार ने…
Posted by योगी आदित्यनाथ की सेना on Sunday, April 22, 2018
Rana Ayyub has come out and denied making any such statements.
The tweet which was tweeted by the parody account of Republic TV has since then been pulled down and even the account has been deleted.
This is not the only false quote which is floated on the social media. Another fake image of a tweet is being shared where Ayyub is shown tweeting “I hate India and Indians”. Ayyub has denied making any such statements and has asked people to use their discretion before sharing such posts.
The last three days there has been a concerted effort in the form of multiple fake tweets, photoshopped tweets, morphed videos on twitter / fb that even the most sensible have fallen for and have gone viral. Those asking me to clarify, please use your own discretion. pic.twitter.com/alf3qkiQSq
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) April 23, 2018
This is not the first time that parody account Republic TV has posted a false news. Earlier too, they posted a split image in which a young boy with a saffron bandana is shown on one side and another image with blue headgear on the other side. It was claimed that this is the same person who was earlier part of protests by Karni Sena and later on was present during the Bharat bandh protests by Dalit groups and it is was falsely claimed that boy’s name is Abdul Jamal Khan. However, enough damage was done as many people and groups shared it across the social platform, same was broadcasted even on news channel India TV, which was later deleted.
Abdul Jamal Khan, the Mullah, present everywhere in all divisive, violent and destructive acts. They want to divide Hindu Society and harm @narendramodi with the help of Congress and @RahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/r2EXpfMjhM
— Tapan Ghosh (@hstapanghosh) April 2, 2018
Spot the difference between real and parody accounts
Many fell for this because the parody account’s name was very similar to the national media house. However, it is not very difficult to differentiate between the two as the original account has a blue tick against its name whereas the parody account does not.
These parody accounts have similar names to national media houses and it is very easy to confuse one with the other. What happens as a consequence is that people, without realising the authenticity of the account, share whatever these parody accounts share. Times Now becomes Times How and Times of India becomes Limes of India.