'Facebook Safety Check' Initiated By Bomb Hoax In Bangkok, Another False Alarm Triggered Panic
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The virtual world of Facebook and social media has always been the target to fake news. Be it false alarms or hoax, social media has been a soft target that triggered several Safety Check feature. Likewise, there is a recent event that again proved Facebook's drawback.
The Facebook users in Thailand were welcomed on Tuesday evening as per local time and early morning, according to the US time with a notification urging the users to mark themselves safe. This was in accordance to a bomb blast, which, in reality never took place.
This fake news was a result of several fake news one of which was about a bombing in Bangkok. Now, this hoax along with the other linked fake news were all traced back to an actual bombing that took place way back in October 2015.
According to The Guardian, the real bombing that took place in 2015 was at a Hindu Shrine. A Spokesperson from Facebook informed about a local media person who was responsible for the false news. The man was reported to be standing on the roof of a building and throwing giant firecrakers and ping pong bombs targeted towards the Government House.
As per the Bangkok Post, the Government House is the place where the prime minister works. But there were no reported injuries and things were within control right away. However, Facebook's activation of the Safety Check feature did create some initial panic. It also shared a link to a fake news report of a bomb explosion.
The local newspaper responsible for publishing the news denied all claims of the fake news. It mentioned that the newspaper publishes news from other sources and refused to talk to The Guardian, in this matter.
On the other hand Facebook too defended itself. As per a statement from the Spokesperson, "As with all safety check activations, Facebook relies on a trusted third party to first confirm the incident and then on the community to use the tool and share with friends and family."
