Social Media Falls For Fictional Story of Teacher Bullied on Zoom

The information has been taken from a Facebook post that clearly stated that it is a fictional story.

Several social media users shared a viral image claiming to show a 55-year-old teacher allegedly being bullied in an online class on Zoom amid COVID-19.

However, we found that the information has been taken from a Facebook post that clearly stated in the end that it is a fictional story written “in solidarity to all teachers who are victims of Zoom bombing by shameless students.”

CLAIM

Several media outlets including The Tribune, India Today, India TV, Loksatta,and International Business Times also fell for the fictional story and went on to publish it as a real incident.

While The Tribune and India Today have deleted their articles and International Business Times has updated its article, others are yet to follow suit.

Danish Manzoor, editorial director-Asia, IB Times had tweeted the same claim, and later issued an update with correction.

The IB Times article mentioned that the information was taken from an Instagram account by the name ‘tedthestoner’ who had later added a disclaimer that it is a fictional story.

View this post on Instagram

This definitely deserved a share. Read,understand, implement. Trolling ≠ bullying(This is a Fictional story for those asking) Principal suddenly called the 55 year old teacher and told him to learn how to take class online.He doesn’t have much to say as he knows that if he denies he will be laid off, at this age in this situation he can’t do any other job, to pay for his family he has no choice. Unwillingly he takes his smart phone to his daughter. His daughter helped him to understand the basic of Zoom, his hands often shake to go around the tabs, he often freezes trying to understand how this thing works but he has no choice. The next day he goes to a market to buy a new white board. The price of these small board soared up, but without these how can he take the class? He took the board in a rickshaw and came home. Placed the board in a chair and started practicing the lesson. It was harder than he thought, staring at a camera and teaching but he has no choice. The next day he wore a new shirt, will be seeing his students after one and half month, his daughter helped him to setup the smart phone, and the students were added and the class went on. He was shaky, his voice cracked every now and then he was nervous but he has no choice. Suddenly an unknown ID started using slang at him, the F word, the A word, open threats. He couldn’t understand how should he react, he shouted out of anger and embarrassment, a teacher is being humulated infront of his students. His life work of earning respect from his students seemed to vanish in seconds. His daughter taught him to mute students but the student could unmute himself, the student kept on using slangs and he did it for entertainment. The only thing the teacher could do was to end the class, as he has no choice. He called for his daughter, she came running and saw her father in tears, she held him tightly tried to calm him down but he kept crying as he never faced such humiliation in his life. That he had troubled sleeping that night, as he knew the next day he has to wake up and face the same ordeal as he has no choice. Note:Abusing a teacher doesn’t make you cool, It makes you sick. Credits: Syed Mohamad Fahim/FB

A post shared by Ted The Stoner (@tedthestoner) on Jul 15, 2020 at 10:14pm PDT

Several social media users have shared the viral image with the same claim on Facebook.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

The Instagram handle of ‘tedthestoner’ had credited the fictional story to Facebook user ‘Syed Mohamad Fahim.’

We found that the user had shared the same text on 30 June with the last line mentioning: “I write this fictional story in solidarity to all teachers who are victims of Zoom bombing by shameless students. May Allah give you patience and these students hedayah.”

Principal suddenly called the 55 year old teacher and told him to learn how to take class online. He doesn't have much...

Posted by Syed Mohammad Fahim on Tuesday, June 30, 2020

To find out the context of the viral image, we conducted a Google reverse search which led us to an article published on 16 July. The article mentioned that Facebook user Hafiz R Rahman had uploaded the viral video from where the screenshot has been taken.

The Bangladeshi user had uploaded the video on 29 June and identified the man in seen in the video as "Mohiuddin Sir,” a physics teacher at the Milestone College, Dhaka.

The user identifies himself as a former student of the said teacher and posted the video where the students can be heard making fun of the teacher.

In a series of Facebook posts, Hafiz mentioned that many people blamed him for not informing the college authority before uploading the video

“I would have deleted the video if the college authorities had taken any steps or informed me that they would take steps. But nothing like that was reported,” his FB post mentioned.

The Quint has not independently verified the claims being made by Hafiz in his Facebook posts. However, it is clear that media outlets and social media users fell for a fictional story.

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