Yet again, you can’t always believe your eyes

Police on standby near Masjid Jamek.

Whether via Whatsapp or Facebook or on the Internet, weigh and sift through messages before you believe them.

TRUE or not? “Dear All, Please be informed that there will be road closures during the Bersih 5 rally and it will commence on 19 November 2016 from 5am until 6pm as follows,” a WhatsApp message claimed. And it listed the roads.

“Please avoid wearing yellow or red clothing as this may cause confusion and unnecessary complications with our local authorities and protestors.”

The way the message went viral, it seems to many Malaysians the answer is “true”.

The answer is “not”.

On Wednesday, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar announced that the police did not issue any notice about road closures in the city due to the Bersih rally.

“We have not issued anything on road closures yet,” Khalid said.

Fake messages exasperate me. It’s tiresome to see them popping up on my WhatsApp groups.

So after The Star Online reported Khalid’s statement, I embedded the denial news report on the road closure message on some of my Whatsapp groups.

Despite the IGP’s denial, there were some who rubbished it, saying, “It seems the denial is true today but not on Saturday.”

True or not? “BREAKING: Former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad dies At 91?” according to http://telegraph-tv.co.uk.

“According to reports, Tun Mahathir, who had been sick for a while, passed on in the early hours of Monday November 14 2016 while receiving treatment in Germany,” it claimed.

“The news of his death is said to be confirmed by his ex-wife Siti Hasmah while speaking to our reporter.”

Those who shared the above news, please raise your hand? Why did you share that news?

The news is fake.

If you read the story and not just the headline, (with a bit of know­ledge) you’d know it is fake. The clue is in this statement: “... confirmed by his ex-wife Siti Hasmah.” The last I checked, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali is still Dr Mahathir’s wife.

The website claimed to be the “World’s Most Reliable News Channel”. On Nov 6, it carried false news, that former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra had died. (Thaksin is alive.)

True or not? Gruesome photographs of a nine-year-old girl wrapped with cardboard and duct tape were posted on WhatsApp.

“Smuggling of children found in Bukit Kayu Hitam.... Police stopped a lorry transporting chicken. On the lorry were six kids. Three of them still were unable to talk.

“They were injected with substance and were to be exported to Thailand where they would be killed for their organs.

“They were each packed in boxes and placed in the centre of the lorry. The lorry was carrying chicken and stuffed boxes with the children hidden in the middle.

“Driver was a Malay man and truck owner Chinese. Pls ensure safety for our children. Do not let them wander far from you.”

The message is fake but the photograph is real.

A variation of that photograph and message has gone viral since last year. I received them on WhatsApp last year.

Thinking it was a new way to smuggle children via the Thai border at Bukit Kayu Hitam, I asked a colleague to write a story.

The story was fake.

Last week, it was back in circulation.

But if you Googled “cardboard, Indonesia, murder”, you’d find the tragic 2015 news report on the rape and murder of nine-year-old Indonesian Putri Nur Fauziah.

Her body was found wrapped in cardboard at a garbage dump in west Jakarta. Putri, according to The Jakarta Post, “was wearing a white undershirt with her mouth gagged by underwear and both of her hands duct-taped”. It was her photo that was used in the false WhatsApp message.

True or not? Video of a woman, dressed in blue T-shirt and white trousers, slapping and punching a baby who is crying on a sofa. The sarcastic caption on WhatsApp was: “Amah looking for a job”.

Here are some of responses to the video:

“If somehow I caught a servant doing that to my baby, I would kill her with my bare hands.”

“Who on earth took that video without stopping the nonsense?”

I asked my colleague to check whether the video was taken in Malaysia. Within 30 minutes, he shared a news article.

The video was real but the caption was wrong.

It turned out that an unnamed eight-year-old girl in Kazakhstan took the video in August this year. And the woman was the mother.

Last week, I attended an Asia News Network meeting in Singapore, and a trainer asked us to share a story in the last three months that showed the culture of our country.

I picked, “Video of sinking ‘Malaysian VIP’ a hoax”. It went viral on Facebook and WhatsApp. People shared it without checking. I’m told this is because there’s a trust deficit in Malaysia.

On Aug 15, The Star Online reported: “PETALING JAYA: A video – purportedly of a Malaysian VIP falling into a creek while officiating a backhoe trash compactor launch – is actually from India.

“The video, which has become the butt of Internet jokes, was said to be of a product invented by the Malaysian Innovation Agency. The caption of the video even claimed that the machine’s launch was officiated by a deputy minister.

“The 31-second video uses My Heart Will Go On, the theme song from the 1997 movie, Titanic, as background music as the machine is seen sinking.

“However, the incident actually took place in Goa, India two months ago, involving Panaji Mayor Surendra Furtado.”

With so many viral fake stories and messages out there, The Star Online will start a “True or Not” section to debunk or confirm such stories. Watch for it.

Today is the Bersih 5 rally. Fake photographs and messages will be shared. Before you do, think: true or not?