Fake News: Odisha Flood Visuals Shared As Kerala’s

Bhubaneswar: Fake news on social media travels faster than the truth. A video about Kerala floods, claiming deer and other wildlife being washed away, that recently went viral has proved it all over again.

The footage, passed off as that of Kerala, was an incident of flooding that occurred in Ganjam district of Odisha in July.

A Tamil Nadu-based news portal OneIndia Tamil shared the video on its Facebook page. Though the video has now been deleted, it attracted more than one lakh views and 2,700 shares in the four hours of it being posted.

Mirror Now journalist Pramod Madhav also shared the video on Twitter. He tweeted, “Kerala rains, deers presumably black bucks caught on flood water, struggling to swim to safety.”

Facebook user K Tony Jose posted the same video on his Facebook timeline on Friday with this update, “The video which spread through the sky in the nilambur river is a video that spread the word in the name of the word. It’s not Kerala. It was in the Odisha.”

He also posted the original link of the video published by a local news channel. The incident was also reported by other media houses.

On July 14, flood water swept more than 20 blackbucks in Kharakhari river, Purusottampur under Ghumsur wildlife division in Ganjam district. All the animals were later rescued by the forest officials.