No, this isn’t a video about a girl attempting bungee jumping and falling without a rope – it is one of India’s most-read news websites falling for a fake video.
The Times of India shared a video titled ‘On cam: Girl’s bungee jump goes horribly wrong?’. The ten-second video shows a woman preparing for a bungee jump, only for the trainer to realise he forgot to hook her up to the rope before he pushed her off.
However, the video is a fake and a simple Google search would have been enough to know that.
The video had circulated heavily on WhatsApp recently and was busted earlier this month.
Another video posted on YouTube on 5 June had provided an alternate angle of the stunt, which showed the girl waving a victory sign. A rope can be clearly seen tied to her legs.
So the trainer did not forget to hook up the rope, but TOI clearly forgot to fact-check its video.
The English daily even shared the video on Facebook, which has now been taken down – but in 12 hours it got nearly 5.3 lakh views, 1,700 shares and over 2,000 comments... but most of the top comments were calling out the fake news.
While journalists across the globe are making efforts to deal with the menace of fake news, it is rather concerning to see big media houses fall for such videos. Interestingly, TOI even started its own fake news busting series titled ‘Fake Bole Kauwa Kate’. Wonder if they will cite their own example in the next episode.
In April, a photoshopped image of TOI’s headline went viral, which drew a sharp reaction from Times Group MD Vineet Jain, who sent out a tweet directed to the trolls saying we are “compiling your names and mobile numbers &coming after you.”
This isn’t the only incident of TOI sharing hoax reports. In November last year, the newspaper made Karnataka and Tamil Nadu ‘fight’ over the legacy of Mysuru pak.
In a bigger gaffe, the national daily ran an interview with the legendary wrestler Hulk Hogan... only it was actually his doppelganger.
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