On December 23, in the streets of Paris, there is panic: a shooting has just broken out in a street in the 10th arrondissement. The balance sheet is terrible: 3 dead, and at least 4 injured. The shooter is a 69-year-old man who deliberately targeted places frequented by the Kurdish community.
And very quickly, on social networks, it’s runaway, and speculation is rife. Many posts, especially on Twitter, suggest that the man in question is of Turkish origin. Her name ? William Mehmed.
Result: for some Internet users, there is no doubt: this terrorist attack was perpetrated by a fanatic of Erdogan, the President of the Republic of Turkey, who has been openly in conflict with the Kurds since he came to power in 2014.
How to explain that this story of a Turkish shooter could circulate so much on the networks, and above all, so quickly? To find out, you can watch the video at the top of this article.
Be strong against fake news
OMF Oh My Fake on SnapchatDiscover, it is the 20 Minutes program that makes you strong against fake news, and more broadly invites you to understand the springs and psychological biases that encourage sharing and virality. Beyond knowing if “It’s true or it’s false”, the important thing is rather to understand “Why did we believe it? », by analyzing the mechanisms that make rumours, often fake, attractive to the point that even seasoned minds – like yours! – can succumb to it.