Social media is flooded with reports about a luxury jeep driven by a daughter of a senior superintendent of police (SSP) crashing into the Nanda Motors Showroom at the Nelum Pokuna roundabout on 15th November. Our investigation confirmed that, the girl whose photos went viral on social media was in fact was not the girl […]
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The fax copy of a letter issued by National Tsunami Early Warning Center started circulating on social media from October 13 and it was claimed that there is a Tsunami alert to those who were living along the coastal areas of the island. Fact Crescendo Sri Lanka investigated these claims and learnt that the message […]
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Online hoaxes and scams are aplenty on the internet and social media seems to be its breeding ground. At Fact Crescendo we are always on the alert for such online frauds, including this post published last April by a Facebook page claiming to be an official page of BMW in Sri Lanka with over 26,000 […]
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We recently discovered a series of posts going viral around the same topic across social media, which claimed to be related to a research conducted by the University of Oxford. The claim however seemed unsubstantiated and was in turn made into memes when posting. Our first sighting of the viral claim was on Instagram, posted […]
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Since the advent of the internet, the spam messages have kept on evolving to newer forms. From email spam to social spam and spam received on messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger and Viber have taken over the spam game. Some spam takes on timely and topical themes, similar to a WhatsApp spam message currently circulating […]
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With the south-west monsoon condition gradually establishing over the country, Meteorology Department has announced several landslide warnings over the past few weeks regarding heavy rainfall. Vehicular movement along the Hatton-Colombo main road was temporarily hampered on 19th May due to the collapse of an earth embankment in Watawala, Hatton and video footages related to the incident […]
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Ever since government of Sri Lanka decided to cremate the COVID19 victims based on the recommendations of health officials that decision has been questioned by number of parties. The main concerns have been raised from the Muslim community stating that since it’s forbidden to cremate the dead as prescribed by Islam, hence to reconsider this […]
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Social platforms are an ideal medium to spread hoaxes on internet by often disguising as trusted and reputed sources or websites in order to deceive the average online content consumer. Some hoaxes are spread internationally and keep resurfacing over and over again. In the past few weeks we have observed a growing number of false […]
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People across the world have been confined to their homes due to lockdowns and curfews that have been imposed to contain the spread of COVID19. As soon as the coronavirus lockdowns started in different countries, images and videos of animals venturing out into cities have flooded media platforms. The narrative accompanying such posts was that […]
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The COVID-19 lockdown globally has manifested in various forms from country to country based on each nation’s regime and level of contamination. Sri Lanka’s lockdown for instance has manifested in the form of a curfew which has disabled incomes of several citizens such as daily wage earners. Access to food and other essential items to […]
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