Unverified handles circulating fake quotes of popular figures are not new. And when the fake quote is attributed to a woman, it becomes an excuse for anonymous trolls to issue death and rape threats to her. Rana Ayyub was recently attacked viciously for days over a fake tweet. Her phone number and address were shared publicly, urging people to rape her.
The recent victim of such an attempt was Faye D’Souza, Executive Editor of Mirror Now. She was targetted after certain handles circulated a fake tweet of hers. Fortunately, it was foiled before the death and rape threats started.
Wow! This is a new low! These jerks have gotten smart enough to write "fictional tweet" at the bottom to avoid legal trouble! #Trolls i obviously didn't tweet this pic.twitter.com/e1BdigojJs
— Faye DSouza (@fayedsouza) July 9, 2018
The fake tweet was made after reports emerged that police “recovered a child from the Missionaries of Charity which has been facing charges of selling newborns to childless couples in Jharkhand.”
D’Souza took to Twitter to clarify that she had not posted the provocative tweet. After her clarification, the page deleted the post. The Facebook page called ‘Presstitutes‘ is followed by over 5,80,000 people and regularly targets journalists and individuals it sees as liberal. The post about D’Souza’s fake tweet received about 1800 shares and over 412 comments. It was shared with the caption “Insane and she is a journalist. Wonder what will happen wid Modi loses (sic).”
Several publications like AltNews are relentlessly tracking down fake news and tweets.
D’Souza was was quick to point out that the tweet cleverly said “Fictional tweet” in one small corner, but how many would look that closely before outraging in the comments’ box.
The question that needs to be asked is – who are the people behind such heinous acts? Will they ever be arrested for their crime?