By now, you should be familiar with “headline commenters”: Facebook users who posted angry comments simply by reading the headline and making assumptions.
Heck, some of them didn’t even bother to read the headline, and commented merely based on the image.
That caused fake news to spread faster, since a misleading headline would lead to more engagement, which in turn will lead to higher distribution.
But this shouldn’t happen to videos, right?
Well.
Recent Viral Video of S’pore-Batam Ferry Hijacked by Pirates is Fake News
On 29 July, a Facebook user posted a video on 槟城吹水站 Facebook group, a Penang Facebook discussion group with over 644k members.
The caption writes, “Singapore – Batam ferry – hijack by Indonesian pirates. Indonesian forces acted fast.”
Given that the borders just opened not too long ago, that seems possible since pirates might’ve been out of job for almost two years.
And it’s even more legit when the video starts with this:
That was the first 18 seconds of the video, and the whole video is 1 min 49 sec, and so, before we would watch on…it’s gone viral.
In less than two days, the video has been shared over 4,000 times, with most shares coming in today (31 July).
A check on the shares shows that many actually believed it, with some claiming that they won’t head to Batam nowadays.
I mean, it makes sense…after all, no one would share a fake story, right?
But it’s, indeed, fake.
Because if you continue to watch the video after 18 seconds, you’d see journalists filming the process of a simulation exercise.
In other words, if you’d have bothered to watch beyond 18 seconds, you probably won’t share the video.
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But over 4,000 people have done so, so if you see this video, remember: it’s fake.
According to Batamnews, the military exercise was conducted on 12 November 2020.
iNews reported back then that this “was a simulation which was part of an operation to improve the readiness of soldiers to take action against maritime crimes.”
As for the “shot” man in the first 18 seconds of the video?
He’s a navy personnel who played the role of a pirate.
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Video Has been Circulated Before
What’s worse is that this isn’t the first time this video has misled others.
On 18 November 2020, a few days after the exercise, someone posted the exact same video on Facebook with the caption, “Pirate’s hijacked the Batam Singapore ferry Indonesian special forces stromed the ferry and killed some and captured others and rescue the passenger’s..”
Back then, it was only shared by about 500 people before it was debunked by AFP Singapore.
Well, a lesson to learn here is simple: never believe what you see online.
Or make judgement too fast.
You can watch this video to understand why we tend to make judgement fast when we’re on Facebook:
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