On Facebook, some photos come up frequently and quickly go viral. This is the epitome of the image of a hospitalized young blonde girl, with a few visible marks on her face. This time, it was shared several times by the same Internet user on the group “Foire à tout Rouen et agglo”. It is not only shared in France, but also in Zimbabwe. Strange for information that would have occurred at the local level.
Generally, it is accompanied by a small description, most of the time alarmist. “We need urgent help to identify a young woman who was attacked, stabbed and left for dead on the side of the road. She is in a coma at the moment and deputies are unable to identify her as she has no ID on her. Let’s circulate this message so that it can reach people who can identify it, ”warns the Internet user here.
If the photo at first sight is touching, even disturbing or shocking, it is taken out of context. The girl in her hospital bed is an American, victim of a car accident in 2016. 20 minutes come back to this story.
FAKE OFF
The girl’s name is actually Taylor Carlton and her identity is not so much of a mystery. Using a reverse image search, we find a trace of the same photograph of the hospitalized girl. This is not a false image, but a news item taken out of context. At the time, several American media like The Spectrum Or St. George News relayed the case.
On May 22, 2016, in Utah, this 16-year-old high school student was seriously injured in a car accident while sitting in the passenger seat. The driver, a friend of his, died at the scene.
On Facebook, a page named “Pray4Tay” had been created to take into account the improvements in the health of the young American. A year later, she notably publishes a live video there to reassure everyone and thank you once again for the support.
Beware of alarmist messages
On Facebook, it is quite common to see similar publications which alert on a disappearance or an abduction for example. But often, these posts can turn out to be taken out of context…as in the case of the hospitalized girl.
Several clues make it possible to ascertain this. For example, as we said earlier, if the message is too alarmist, there is probably a wolf. The goal is above all to build up a strong enough audience to eventually edit the message and replace it with an advertisement, for example for online surveys.
Also, in these cases, the user takes the comments off. The idea? Avoid all suspicion or questioning by other Internet users. This was once again the case in the publication in question. Finally, it is quite possible to do a reverse image verification via the free tool “Google images” to find occurrences of the doubtful image.
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