Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos
Occasionally, against all odds, you’ll see an interesting or even enjoyable picture on the Internet. But is it worth sharing, or just another Photoshop job that belongs in the digital trash heap? Check in here and find out if that viral photo deserves an enthusiastic “forward” or a pitiless “delete.”
DELETE
On Saturday, deadly floodwaters hit Tbilisi, Georgia, killing at least 19 and releasing an unknown number of animals from the Tbilisi Zoological Park and onto the city’s streets.
As Twitter’s @hoaxeye pointed out, however, the above photo said to be from Tbilisi was actually taken after flooding in Indian-controlled Kashmir last year, then bearing the caption “A mother dog tries to save her pup in Rajbagh.”
A widely-circulated image of a lion supposedly roaming Tbilisi was similarly misattributed. While lions were among the animals that escaped on Saturday, the picture is almost a decade old and was taken at Kruger National Park in South Africa.
FORWARD
However, there was no shortage of legitimate stunning images from last weekend’s disaster, including a memorable series of photos showing an escaped hippopotamus. Eventually, the hippo was tranquilized and led by Tbilisi residents back to the city’s zoo.
Images via Twitter
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When Australian surfer Alex Hayes posted this shark-enhanced selfie on Instagram last Thursday, the 17-year-old had no idea the image would become the subject of international news, earning write-ups from The Independent, The Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail.
To the few reporters that asked, however, Hayes readily admitted the photo was a fake.
“It is not real,” Hayes told News.com.au this week. “I thought it was obvious from the start and it was just a funny photo but circulated more than I thought so without acting anything or lying, me and my mate just rolled with it.”
FORWARD
This fun photo of a raccoon hanging out on the back of an alligator is chill and real, snapped by a hiker in Florida’s Ocala National Forest last weekend. Cool, right?
Image via Twitter
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Finally, this week saw the return of the above long-debunked, seemingly unkillable image supposedly showing a female warrior in feudal Japan. Ignoring the fact that photography only came to Japan as the nation was abandoning feudalism, the auction listing that’s the source of the photo clearly describes it as a portrait of a kabuki actor during the modernizing Meiji era.
