Fake posts make netizens ‘sick’
Miscreants post morphed pictures of netizens on Facebook
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-06-10 07:19 GMT
Vijayawada: Social media users are completely bugged with posts of sick people seeking their “likes” or comments repeatedly surfacing on the net or instant messaging apps. Miscreant netizens randomly post pictures of users claiming them to be ailing. The page administrators mostly remain untraceable by users. The pictures posted are often accompanied by a letter or voice describing the sad condition of the victim.
This has spread to even instant messaging services like WhatsApp, where miscreants send out voice messages to make it sound credible. Some pictures show lost legs or some other important body parts lost in accidents. Others claim that the miscreants suffer from chronic diseases and need to be treated immediately.
They even claim that sharing and liking the particular picture will help the patient as Facebook would pay them Rs 0.86 per share or like. Such practice much prevalent on social media often uses original pictures of users who are shocked to see their pictures misrepresented.
In one such post containing a picture of a girl from Andhra Pradesh the underlying message reads, “The girl in the picture met with an accident recently. She lost both the legs and needs to be operated. We may not be able to donate her directly but you can share and like the picture since Facebook and Whatsapp pay Rs 0.86 per share and like.”
Friends of the girl in the picture could only comment and ask the administrator to remove it and claim that the story was completely fake. Ironically the page that posted the girl's picture also has a picture of another girl as profile picture. Several educative pages on Fb, hence are asking people to be cautious about posting pictures.