Published 20:03 IST, January 9th 2020
Rihanna shares fake photo of Australia bushfires after it goes viral
American singer Rihanna recently fell victim to the fake information being shared on the Internet. On January 6, she shared a fake map of burning bushfires.
Amidst massive destruction to life and properties due to the escalating bushfire crisis in Australia, a lot of misinformation is reportedly being spread on the internet. Not only regular among people but even a few celebrities have fell victim to the wrong maps and graphics believing them to be true. Recently, American singer Rihanna shared a misinterpreted image of burning fires in Australia.
Shared the fake image on Instagram
On January 6, the Work hitmaker took to Instagram to share an image of a map, which claimed to show Australian bushfires but eventually it turned out to be fake. A reverse search revealed that the image was actually artist Anthony Hearsey's visualisation of the data collected over a month on fires in Australia. In the text written along with the picture, he explained that it was a compilation and not all the areas were burning.
He further added that it was a 3D visualisation of the hotspots in Australia and not a photo. He also urged the people to think of it as a graph and note that it was created as an art piece. Soon after it went viral, Instagram flagged it as false information. Hearsey also justified the marking saying that a number of people have misled others calling it a NASA photo which is probably why Instagram has marked it as “False Information”
Adding to the image shared by Rihanna, there are various other maps doing the rounds on social media which have led to a lot of confusion amongst the netizens.
Updated 20:03 IST, January 9th 2020