Svartbjørn
Senior Member.
Ive had a few friends posting about this on FB lately, and like usual people dont check into things before they just click the share button.. Here's how it works:
User ABC sees this picture and caption:
(Shocking Video Footage) 18 dead in horrific roller coaster accident
16 confirmed dead in roller coaster accident that occurred in Orlando's Universal Studios
(already see the inconsistency?)
When you click on the link (youtubevideoupdate.com) you're taken to a still frame of the exact same shot with a bit more drama:
The only way to actually see the video is to share it, but you don't get to see said video.. instead you get sent here:
This hoax has been making the rounds for a little while, even thought theres a LOT of evidence that its a Hoax, including news articles:
So I got curious and started digging around a bit, took a look at the web elements on the forwarded page
and found that the image is stored on imgur. I ripped it out of the HTML and did a quick image search. While I couldnt find the source of the image (looks like someone photoshopped it and uploaded it) I did find that its been used quite a bit for several major theme parks around the world and the US.
http://goo.gl/omDCKR
As the Orlando paper pointed out, its not only a hoax but opens up all kinds of issues with bogus websites.. like the one I got linked to.
If you guys can find the actual source of the image, awesome.. if not, heres to 3 min of your life you'll never get back reading this post.
User ABC sees this picture and caption:
(Shocking Video Footage) 18 dead in horrific roller coaster accident
16 confirmed dead in roller coaster accident that occurred in Orlando's Universal Studios
(already see the inconsistency?)
When you click on the link (youtubevideoupdate.com) you're taken to a still frame of the exact same shot with a bit more drama:
The only way to actually see the video is to share it, but you don't get to see said video.. instead you get sent here:
This hoax has been making the rounds for a little while, even thought theres a LOT of evidence that its a Hoax, including news articles:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...r-hoax-20140309_1_facebook-users-coaster-hoax
That Orlando roller coaster crash you read about on Facebook? It's a hoax
March 9, 2014|By Jim Abbott, Orlando Sentinel
Relax roller coaster fans.There's been no recent fatal theme-park accident here in Orlando.
On some Facebook walls on Sunday, reports attributed to "Fox News" stated that such an incident had happened, but the news item was uncovered as a possible virus link and, of course, a hoax.
By late Sunday, Web sites such as dominant-domains.com even were offering instructions on how to delete the spam post.
The recent iteration of a long-running hoax states that 16 people have died in an accident at "Universal Studios of Orlando." That wording of a specific hoax has existed online at least since last month but was noticed again by some Facebook users on Sunday.
Also last month, a similar roller coaster fatality hoax was posted on Facebook in an attempt to get users to go to a Brazilian site that featured fake videos.
And it's certainly not the first time that a bogus theme-park accident has been used as bait for a scam.
In 2011, Facebook users were duped into sharing links claiming to offer video footage of theme park accidents in either Alton Towers in the United Kingdom, Summertime Theme Park in Australia or Universal Studios in Hollywood, Calif. Instead, the link took the user to a rogue application.
So I got curious and started digging around a bit, took a look at the web elements on the forwarded page
<div style="background-image:url(http://i.imgur.com/hIoWz3b.jpg);width:560px;height:322px;overflow:hidden;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size: 100%;" id="fontvideo" align="left">
<div style="width:500px;height:200px;margin-left:20px;color:#FFF;">
and found that the image is stored on imgur. I ripped it out of the HTML and did a quick image search. While I couldnt find the source of the image (looks like someone photoshopped it and uploaded it) I did find that its been used quite a bit for several major theme parks around the world and the US.
http://goo.gl/omDCKR
As the Orlando paper pointed out, its not only a hoax but opens up all kinds of issues with bogus websites.. like the one I got linked to.
If you guys can find the actual source of the image, awesome.. if not, heres to 3 min of your life you'll never get back reading this post.
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