How to avoid falling for a hoax after a tragic event

The identities of only nine of the 84 people killed in the Nice terrorist attack have been announced, but social media remains a hotbed of supposed relatives asking for information concerning the whereabouts of their loved ones. Yet beyond those officially announced by government agencies, BuzzFeed warns that many of the heart-wrenching calls for help are nothing more than the work of pranksters hoping to trick the well-intentioned or the media.

Despite thousands of shares and retweets, posts such as the above use images of people who were not victims in the attacks. The photograph of one man in particular has been used in the EgyptAir crash, the Istanbul airport attack, the Orlando shooting, and now in Nice. "My photo is everywhere because of someone who started it as a prank after a legal dispute. I never reported the people who did this to me because, in Mexico, nothing ever happens in these kinds of cases," the man, in the picture below, told France 24.

France 24 has a guide for learning how to avoid falling for hoaxes and false information after tragedies, including tips like doing a reverse image search to see if a photo has already been published in a different context. Read many more at France 24, here.

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