I do not deny the killings of Muslims in Burma

[KevinNYC]

What I am against is being lied to.

In the Kobane thread there's a whole list of grisly images that I will not post here claiming to be evidence of violence against Muslims in Burma. They are not. Most of the pictures are not from Burma at all, but from China and Thailand years earlier. It's pretty clear that two things are happening. One there is ethnic unrest going on in Burma. Two images from other tragedies are being used in a fake propaganda campaign. The following is from the blog of a Pakistani newspaper's media reporter.


[I][SIZE="5"][B]Social media is lying to you about Burma

[Patrick Chewing]

Wow. Finally. Kev is seeing the light.


Come closer. Step out of the shadows.


Or do you not share the same opinions as the author?

[KevinNYC]

The image of Tibetan monks among hundreds of dead is from a 7.1 earthquake in China in 2010 that killed 2700 people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Yushu_earthquake
http://zhudake.blog.caixin.com/archives/28453

[Akrazotile]

What I am against is being lied to.

In the Kobane thread there's a whole list of grisly images that I will not post here claiming to be evidence of violence against Muslims in Burma. They are not. Most of the pictures are not from Burma at all, but from China and Thailand years earlier. It's pretty clear that two things are happening. One there is ethnic unrest going on in Burma. Two images from other tragedies are being used in a fake propaganda campaign. The following is from the blog of a Pakistani newspaper's media reporter.


Social media is lying to you about Burma’s Muslim ‘cleansing’[/B]

Social networking sites are abuzz with news about Muslims being killed in Burma.You can see the sporadic posting of pictures by different people with captions like ‘Muslims killing in Burma’, ‘Muslims slaughtered by Buddhists in Burma’ and so on.

Thus, I took on the mission to sort the truth out for myself once and for all and researched some pictures that I felt were dubious. Below are a few pictures and their original copies. You can evidently see the gross difference between them and how they are thrown out of context.

This was a picture shared on Facebook.

I have found the original version which reads differently to the the one posted on the social networking site.

This picture was taken in 2010 after an earthquake in China and captures the efforts put in by the Tibetans to help rescue the victims. Now, Islamic political parties and some other elements are sharing this image as Muslim killing and their slaughter in Burma

Another widely circulated picture captioned “More then 1,000 people killed in Burma” is also fake.

The original, as you can see below, is taken in Thailand in the year 2004. This picture shows protesters that were tear-gassed outside the Tal Bai police station in Bangkok. [This is roughly 1,409.9 km away from Burma! What is grossly negligent about these photos is the factual ignorance of the hate these misleading photos can culminate.

Below, please find another image which was posted online, this time with an imprint of Jamaat-e-Islami on the top left . It reads ‘Terrorists of Budhism of Burma kills 500 Muslims’.

As you can guess, this is also a fabricated picture.

In reality, this image belongs to a Human Rights violation incident by the Thai authorities against the Rohingya ethnic minority of Burma.[/B] These refugees were detained for a few weeks and then sent off drifting into the sea.

Here is another instance of such fallacy spreading across the social media sites regarding the massacre of Muslims in Burma.

This picture is extremely misleading considering that the original image was about the riots in Thailand that took place in 2003!

Now, take a look at the image below and observe how it is blown out of context.

The original picture is not even remotely close to what the picture above states. In fact, a Tibetan protester had set himself on fire in protest prior to the arrival of Chinese president Hu Jintao and that too in Delhi.

I do not deny the killings of Muslims in Burma – not even for a minute.

I think it is horrific and I am sympathetic towards the immense loss being suffered by my Muslim brothers and sisters abroad.

What I am against is being lied to.

Imagine the amount of lies we are being fed through these pictures. How can one trust any image online if such drastic manipulation and editing is being done to cater to someone’s political or personal agenda?

Social media and networking sites, if used properly, can be an impressive tool in spreading awareness amongst its users, but it can be an equally dangerous median as well if misused.


These images are false and are only igniting hatred and prejudice in our youth.[/B]

We need to become more vigilant and aware of the credibility and authenticity of pictures we browse through. It only takes one wrong image to push us over the edge towards extremism.



Wait how can it be dangerous? How many people have Facebook and Twitter shot, stabbed, or beheaded?

[KevinNYC]

This image does not show dead at all and is from 2004
http://www.gettyimages.fr/detail/photo-d'actualit%C3%A9/violence-in-thailands-muslim-south-in-tak-bai-photo-dactualit%C3%A9/124103880

There were folks who died during this incident. 7 protestors were shot. Then the protesters were forced to lie on their bellies like this and crawl to trucks to remove them. A further 85 died from suffocuation in the trucks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tak_Bai_incident

Here's a news report from 2004.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/1475199/80-Thai-Muslims-suffocate-after-arrest-at-protest.html

[fiddy]

What do you care? Mind your own business murican sheeple.

[KevinNYC]

There's another horrific image used that is actually from story about cannabilaism in Africa.

[LJJ]

This always happens with these types of images. Images of supposed Palestinian victims. Victims of the Assad regime. The Egyptian regime. etcetera. All extremely unreliable.

[Smoke117]

They are always killing someone in Burma...so who cares?

[KevinNYC]

Wow. Finally. Kev is seeing the light.

Come closer. Step out of the shadows.

Or do you not share the same opinions as the author?
Actually, I have a history here of debunking similar fake news stories that happen in the US. See here (http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10247807&postcount=34) from a year ago when people were pushing bullshit from Storm Cloud Gathering news as something real. Lots of folks bought it immediately. They didn't stop to question it.

Real photojournalism photos have a history that can be traced. Photojournalists make their living by selling their images. Even if the took a picture in 2004, they can still resell that today. These original images are often on the websites of the news agency or photo agency that represents them. They also follow a code of ethics. The first rule of which is

Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.

Here's the first sentence of the AP's code (http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/goffs/135%20photojournalism/Associated%20Press%20ethics%20code.pdf)
AP pictures must always tell the truth.

This means you can often trace a photograph back to its source and it should tell exactly the context in which the photo was taken. If you see an outrageous claim that doesn't link to real journalism source for the image, your skepticism should kick in. Emotions, beliefs, motivations and other human irrationality often override your skepticism. This affects everyone regardless of political orientation.

Propagandists of all stripes know how easy it to recaption an image and use it to lie or to photoshop. Some Ukranian journalism students who setup a site dedicated to stopping fake photos and news stories called stopfake.
http://4-ps.googleusercontent.com/hk/ZeJ-ptHeodZsDhPCtzlz5KUp3i/www.stopfake.org/content/uploads/2014/08/491x350x81.png.pagespeed.ic._tUFQTaPr-Ma5X9hQKYC.webp

Here's one where they caught a fake photo being used against Russians.
http://www.stopfake.org/en/falsified-photos-of-russian-soldier-in-donbas/