INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
social media claims to show a baby being rescued from a Lion Air plane that crashed in Indonesia with 189 people on board.However, no
survivors have been reported since Monday's crash, and the image is from a deadly boat accident in July this year.WHAT ARE WE VERIFYINGThe
service just months ago, crashed 12 minutes after taking off from Jakarta airport.Multiple Facebook posts with the misleading image, showing
the baby wearing a life vest, claimed it was taken shortly after the child was saved.One of the posts -- which was shared nearly 5,000 times
in the first 24 hours after posting -- gave in-depth but fictional details about the purported rescue."Thank God for saving this baby, a
victim of the JT 610 flight covered in life jacket by the baby's mother," the caption in the post said."Unfortunately, the mother has not
Please be patient, dear baby
Hopefully you will become a religious child."WHAT DO WE KNOWIndonesia's disaster mitigation agency spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said on
Twitter that the baby was a survivor from a boat that sank in waters off Indonesia's Selayar island on July 3."This information is a hoax
Please don't spread hoaxes," Sutopo said in a tweet on Tuesday about the purported photo of the baby being rescued from the
baby in their July reports on the ferry disaster that confirmed Sutopo's post.WHAT CONCLUSION CAN BE DRAWNThe misleading photo is an example
of disinformation that proliferates on social media in relation to disasters and other events that cause human misery.Sutopo also posted
more tweets following the plane crash warning against other pieces of disinformation.These included a video that he said falsely claimed to
be of passengers screaming before the crash, and a photo purporting to show the wreckage of the plane.(Except for the headline, this story
has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
