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The Journal
5 days ago
- The Journal
Debunked: Video of Dublin used in false claim about ‘massacre' on day of Carlow shooting
A VIDEO TAKEN in Dublin that was falsely said to show a 'shopping mall massacre' in which a nine-year-old child was shot by a man carrying explosives, has been shared millions of times on social media. The claim is untrue, and the video is unrelated. Several posts making this claim appeared online on 1 June, after reports of a gunman at a shopping centre in Carlow. Gardaí quickly stated that a shooting incident had occurred, but within hours explained that the only person who had died was the suspect, from self-inflicted injuries. The suspect was a white, Irish man from the local area. A girl was injured when she fell while running away from the scene and required attention from paramedics, though did not need hospital care. While the bomb squad had been called in, no explosives were found at the scene. These events are likely to have spurred speculation about a child being shot and explosive vests. Some of the misinformation that was spread on social media included claims that seven people had been shot; that the gunman was shot dead by Gardaí; and that he was an Islamic terrorist. However, one viral post about the incident was notable for sharing a video that wasn't from anywhere near the scene and for including a number of other false claims. It was viewed millions of times. The post shared a video of Gardaí rushing down a street with sirens blaring in the background, alongside a caption that stated: 'Something very serious is unfolding in Ireland right now. 'Today's Shopping Mall Massacre, which saw a 9-year-old girl shot by a man who had explosives strapped to his body, has enraged the General Public. Ireland may have a Civil War VERY soon. The Irish have had enough.' However, there was no 'massacre', a nine-year-old was not shot, and the gunman did not have explosives strapped to his body. The video clearly shows Gardaí on Grafton Street in Dublin. Advertisement The scene in the video does not look anything like the area around Fairgreen Shopping Centre, where the incident occurred, nor anywhere else in Carlow town. The post was shared by the @CilComLFC account on X, and has been viewed more than 5,700,000 times at the time of writing. The @CilComLFC account has a blue tick on X, a symbol that previously signified that the account belonged to an organisation or public figures, including politicians, recognised authorities and journalists. However, since the takeover of the company by Elon Musk, these ticks now indicate that the account has paid for a subscription — though X still, misleadingly, refers to these accounts as being 'verified' . Paid subscribers also have their posts boosted to get more views and are eligible for X's Creator Revenue Sharing programme , where accounts get paid for getting high engagement with their posts. Posts by the @CilComLFC account have been re-shared on the feed of Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform. The account frequently spreads misinformation, often targeting migrants, and claims to be Irish. Identical posts, using the same footage and wording, were also posted to Facebook multiple times. There, they have accumulated more than 34,000 views, according to statistics from Meta, Facebook's parent company. They repeat the false claims that the video from Dublin shows a 'massacre' in which a nine-year-old was shot by a gunman who had explosives strapped to his body. In reality, there was no massacre, no explosives, and nobody aside from the shooter sustained injuries from a gun. Want to be your own fact-checker? Visit our brand-new FactCheck Knowledge Bank for guides and toolkits The Journal's FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network's Code of Principles. You can read it here . For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader's Guide here . You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here . Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... It is vital that we surface facts from noise. Articles like this one brings you clarity, transparency and balance so you can make well-informed decisions. We set up FactCheck in 2016 to proactively expose false or misleading information, but to continue to deliver on this mission we need your support. Over 5,000 readers like you support us. If you can, please consider setting up a monthly payment or making a once-off donation to keep news free to everyone. Learn More Support The Journal
The Independent
23-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
X's ‘Creator Revenue Sharing Program' gets totally pwned by Vietnamese click farm, lawsuit reveals
A Vietnamese click farm is accused of duping Elon Musk 's X out of a small fortune by exploiting apparently lax controls surrounding its 'Creator Revenue Sharing Program' – an initiative touted by the world's richest person as a purported way for premium users to ' earn a living ' through their activity on the site. The eight-man crew operated out of a dingy office space in downtown Hanoi, where they 'programmatically post[ed] computer-generated content' to a network of 'inauthentic' X profiles set up using stolen identities 'to engage in coordinated platform manipulation,' according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday and obtained by The Independent. It says these automated profiles would subsequently ''like,' 'repost,' and otherwise artificially engage with each other's content, all for the purpose of deceiving X into paying out funds' based on what the company – which just last year enthusiastically touted a new 'improved authentic engagements algorithm' – now claims were bogus clicks. The 'fraudulent scheme,' X's complaint contends, extracted payouts from the Creator Revenue Sharing Program 'by manufacturing the appearance of content engagement where none really exists.' X is now seeking 'disgorgement' of the group's haul, suing them and 25 as-yet unidentified 'John Does' for what its complaint calls 'a pattern of racketeering activity, including… thousands of predicate racketeering acts of wire fraud since at least 2023.' Although the company's complaint does not specify the exact amount of the outfit's total take, it says the payments were funneled into at least 125 U.S. bank accounts, set up using stolen identities, and transferred to accounts in their real names at nine banks in Vietnam, across more than 1,700 individual transactions. The complaint was filed in Texas, where X is headquartered. According to the complaint, private investigators working for X eventually learned the names and addresses of the eight named defendants after external payment processing sites PingPong and Payoneer, where Stripe, X's payment processor, sent the Hanoi team's 'ill-gotten gains,' turned over the identity documents used to set up their accounts. The five attorneys representing X in the case did not respond on Friday to requests for comment. Defendants Do Minh Thang, Phan Ngoc Tuan, Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, Le Dinh Chung, Nguyen Nhu Duc, Nguyen Viet Kieu, Do Viet Khanh, and Do Xuan Long were unable to be reached. X's revenue sharing program was launched in 2022, shortly after Musk bought the platform for $44 billion. In the beginning, premium users, who pay $8 a month for a blue 'verified' checkmark next to their names and preferred algorithm placement, received a portion of the revenue generated by ads served to other premium users in their replies. But when hate speech on X proliferated under Musk's stewardship, and major advertisers began to flee the site, the company rejiggered the program to instead reward accounts for how many interactions they generated with other premium users. Payouts vary based on a variety of factors, but one estimate pegs it at around $8 for every 1 million impressions. 'The more engagement an account generates, the more the account holder is financially rewarded,' X's complaint states. However, according to the complaint, the alleged fraudsters in Hanoi 'deceive[d] X into concluding that the accounts they control are the accounts of legitimate content creators deserving of payment.' 'Just as a broker in the financial industry may 'churn' profits by engaging in excessive and unnecessary trades in a client's investment account to generate artificially high commissions or fees, Defendants have employed software to create extensive, artificial engagement within a network of commonly-owned and controlled accounts,' the complaint continues. The group also sold their automation tools and techniques, generating a separate stream of income by teaching others how to help themselves to a slice of X's money, the complaint contends. One script, called the 'XGPT Tool,' was advertised to tens of thousands of users on YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, Discord, Facebook, Instagram and X itself, the complaint goes on. On top of the fraud allegations central to X's complaint, the filing also accuses the Hanoi hackers of trademark infringement, asserting they specifically 'misuse[d] and misappropriate[d] the Twitter and X Trademarks' in thumbnails for instructional videos posted to YouTube. Broadly speaking, X's complaint claims the alleged scam 'has harmed [its] reputation and customer relationships by introducing low-quality content to the platform.' 'Anytime there's a monetary value added to clicks, there's going to be people going to the dark side,' an Illinois social media marketing CEO told the Associated Press in 2014. X is seeking 'injunctive relief to disrupt the [Hanoi crew's] ongoing criminal scheme,' and is asking for compensatory, treble, and punitive damages in an amount to be proven at trial.
