Published 18:06 IST, April 1st 2020
Fact Check: Is the video of a man smearing sweat on an elevator, from Hong Kong?
Fact Check: A video shared on various social media portals shows that a man smearing his saliva and sweat all over the buttons and walls of a lift in Hong Kong.
A lot of messages and videos are going viral on the various social media portals available. While some of these are true facts and information, a large number of viral posts show fake news. One of the most recent viral videos that is being circulated on social media is of a man caught on a CCTV camera smearing his sweat all-around a lift that he is using.
Claim:
The video is being shared on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media portals. These posts claim that the video is from a building named Kai Tak Garden. Many posts talk about how the man is trying to spread his sexually transmitted disease and is smearing around bacteria through his sweat and saliva. The video has the stamp of the date March 20, 2020. Here is a post from Facebook which has 1.3K views.
Rating: Fake
A Google Reverse Image Search by taking snips from the video leads to an article published by a Singapore-based newspaper named The Thaiger. This report claims that the man was captured in a Bangkok lift trying to deliberately contaminate it. The article was published on March 21, 2020.
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The video is from Bangkok, Thailand and not from Hong Kong
Origin:
The Facebook snipped above is said to be one of the first posts with the fake video and message shared, as per an article by a news source. The article from the Singapore newspaper talks about how the man is a 32-year-old from Thailand. He was deliberately contaminating the lift with his saliva and sweat. He was arrested by the authorities. The staff from the building immediately disinfected the elevator and also the nearby areas in the fear that he might have continued to do so on other places as well. The police claimed that if the man is found to be infected, he might be put to jail or will have to pay a fine of 100,000 baht. Here is the video as shared by that original report:
Updated 18:06 IST, April 1st 2020