Woman blames manager for fake 'Piyush Gupta' post, claims she was blackmailed
A Singapore-based woman at the centre of a viral LinkedIn post involving a supposed encounter with former DBS Bank CEO Piyush Gupta has claimed that she was blackmailed by a freelance social media manager who published the fake story without her consent.Janney Hujic, a Singapore-based professional, went viral on May 21 after sharing a detailed post and a picture of her 'chance encounter' with a man whom she mistook for the Indian-origin CEO. Piyush Gupta, however, responded to her viral post soon after to say it wasn't him Hujic had met.advertisementAfter facing backlash over the post, Hujic claimed she had no idea the misleading post had gone viral until the evening of May 24, when she returned online after a trip to Vietnam, according to a report published by Mothership, citing 8world News.
Hujic told 8world News that her LinkedIn post featuring a fabricated conversation with 'Piyush Gupta' was created and uploaded by a social media manager she had hired in March.The manager, Hujic claimed, is based in the Philippines and exploited her offline status to post the fake story in a bid to gain traction. The manager, soon after, changed her account passwords and demanded S$5,000 to delete the viral post.'Post has over 6k engagement. Pay me 5k SGD and I take down,' read one message allegedly sent to Hujic's partner by the social media manager, according to a screenshot accessed by 8world News.advertisementDespite the payment, Hujic claimed that she has still not been able to access her LinkedIn and Instagram accounts.Meanwhile, the man in the picture in her LinkedIn post, later identified as Kumar H Subramaniam, had informed Hujic at the time that he was not Piyush Gupta. Hujic said the photo was taken and shared as a joke among friends.
Screenshot from Janney Hujic's post
The now-deleted LinkedIn post, however, falsely described her encounter with Gupta, prompting the real ex-CEO to publicly state it wasn't him.
Janney Hujic claimed that the manager had been paid based on post engagement and had access to both her LinkedIn and Instagram accounts. She is in a state of utter shock after a joke shared privately was twisted into a viral hoax.
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