Nigerian Christians Burnt Alive Photo: Hate Mongering Fake

Loonwatch.com already took this photo to task with an excellent dissertation posted several months ago, yet the story continues to be passed around. That site will show you that the charred bodes were in fact a result of a tanker explosion in the Congo. Because they have already posted an authoritative rebuttal to this photo, such a discussion isn’t necessary here. I urge you to read their blog if you have any doubts about the photo.

This is just another example of social media’s tendency to repost first and ask questions later. Such was the case recently when a false story took hold about a “trend” of nails being placed in cheese in dog parks. The “trend” ended up being a single occurrence in South America. Or when a photo of  dead coyotes hanging from a fence was posted on Facebook and attributed to “Spanish bastards” with no corroborating links. When people see these heart-tugging photos in their Facebook newsfeed, their knee-jerk reaction is the be upset and re-post. Doing so when the story ends up being fake makes the re-poster an inadvertent proponent of a hoax.

(Another popular photo on Facebook, that of a child in a hospital bed, is yet another heart-wrenching photo that most people assume is a child in need of medical aid, when in fact it was a photo of him post-surgery.)

It’s unfortunate that someone would take a horrible accident and create a new divisive, hateful story from it in order to promote their point of view.[Read more]

Took me a week to read a decent comment left on previous post  

My apologies,i was quite busy and didn’t read it.

I felt i had to post the other side as well.Also i felt quite relieved that this atrocity is not really happening. On the other hand it’s so pathetic if some are really altering the truth to achieve their goals.

I am sorry for the victims of the explosion,truly sorry, I am more sorry for those who are still working on how to create a world full of hatred.