Hoax Message Claims Video Titled ‘India Is Doing It’ Will Hack Your Phone
BOOM found that the message is a hoax since it mainly relies on people forwarding the message, a huge telltale sign in cases of hoax messages.
Claim
False Facebook and Twitter posts informing about a new WhatsApp hoax where a video titled 'India is doing it' has the ability to hack your phone are going viral. The posts are being shared with the caption, "Hi everyone ... A video has started circulating around that shows how the Covid-19 curve is flattening in India. The file is called ... "India is doing it". DO NOT OPEN IT ! It hacks your phone in 10 seconds and it cannot be stopped in any way. Kindly Pass the information on to your family and friends."
Fact
BOOM had previously debunked this claim in July 2020 when it went viral as a hoax in Argentina, and again in October 2020 when the 'Argentina' was replaced by 'India'. The message is verbatim to the previous message except the "Now they also siad it on TV news" part. It still asks readers to forward the message. The way the message has been written is a telltale sign of an obvious hoax, since it relies on people forwarding the message to their friends and relatives. Additionally, it threatens with extremes such as "it hacks your phone in 10 seconds" and that it cannot "be stopped in any way." Such extreme threats are usually meant to scare the reader and hinder them from thinking logically.
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