A video that appears to show a woman being attacked has been viewed tens of thousands of times in multiple YouTube posts and on various websites alongside a claim the footage shows a COVID-19 frontline nurse who was raped and stabbed to death. The claim is false; the footage was in fact taken from a sexual harassment awareness campaign video in India that circulated online years before the coronavirus pandemic.
The eight-second video was published on YouTube here on June 12, 2020. It has been viewed more than 23,000 times.
Screenshot of the misleading post taken on June 19, 2020
The post's Tagalog-language caption states: "Frontliner NURSE raped and repeatedly stabbed by a man DEAD ON ARRIVAL / #frontlinernurse #deadonarrival / A lot of evil people now despite the pandemic this man still raped and stabbed someone".
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The video briefly shows footage of a man purportedly assaulting a woman before text appears on the screen that reads in part: "Condolences to the family".
Identical videos were also shared alongside a similar claim on YouTube here and on other websites here and here.
The claim is false.
A reverse image search on Yandex using video keyframes extracted with InVID-WeVerify, an online verification tool, found the footage was taken from a scripted sexual harassment awareness campaign video that was published in 2017, years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The original video was posted to YouTube here on March 17, 2017, by The Backchod, a channel "dedicated to producing entertaining and engaging videos."
The footage in the misleading posts corresponds to the 40-second mark to the 44-second mark in the original video. The Backchod video's caption reads in part: "The Backchod brings you a hard hitting video on and against molestation inspired by some real life events."
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Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the video uploaded by the The Backchod (R):
Screenshot comparison The Backchod also said its video is a simulation.
"This was a scripted video made for the social message on the molestation happening all over the world," the organisation told AFP in a Facebook message on June 18, 2020.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by BOOM staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)