Pope Francis’ death paid homage to mourners around the world.
A swarm of fake and misleading content has suspended a global rush of condolences poured online for the 88-year-old Argentine reformer ahead of Saturday’s funeral.
The result was Parr in some respects of the 12th grade principal’s course of the Catholic Church, and although he spoke violently against disinformation, it was also a frequent subject.
“The tragedy of disinformation is about trusting others, presenting their enemies as enemies, demonizing them, promoting conflict,” Pope Francis wrote in a message on World Communication Day 2018. He compared modern “fake news” to the “snake tactile tactile” adopted by the snake in the Christian origin story described in the Bible.
“There’s nothing like harmless disinformation,” he insisted. “Even the seemingly slight distortions of the truth can have dangerous effects.”
Two years ago, the Pope realized he was one of the most prominent lies of the 2016 US presidential election, and was reluctant yet central when a hoax blew up online saying he supported Donald Trump. The false story was most involved on Facebook in the election talk three months before the vote, BuzzFeed News reported at the time.
Some of the falsehoods that caused his death appeared to be aimed at misrepresenting his actions and connections as well.
One extensive video appeared to show him clap President Trump’s hands. However, the clip was manipulated and originally aired as a joke on the comedian’s late-night television show.
Another video claiming to show the demonic ritual on display at the Pope’s funeral has been found to be unrelated footage from Spain.
In the third case, a photo of a pope meeting a Holocaust survivor in 2014 was misrepresented as evidence that it was seen by the wealthy Rothschild family, a favorite target for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
“Content pays attention”
The disinformation rash highlights how bad actors are trying to farm or push forward the stories targeted to exploit the topics around major events.
A similar campaign has influenced false claims about vaccines and pedophilia following the deaths of other public figures, such as Elizabeth II, who passed away in 2022.
“In general, content is gaining attention,” Mike Caulfield, a digital literacy expert who authors a book on online information verification, told AFP.
“When someone dies, people run to a spotlight, like they’re morbid, and try to go to the show,” Caulfield said. “For some people, it’s an opportunity to promote the agenda, and they link events and numbers to any political causes or conspiracy theories they generally promote. For others, it’s about money, trolling, or attention.”
Numerous images produced by artificial intelligence – the creation of Pope Francis’ AI draped on the rainbow LGBTQ pride flag, as well as the now-acclaimed portrayal of him wearing a white puff coat that became the internet sensation in 2023, have also resurfaced after his death.
They are joined by new fake fakes that spread in multiple languages. One of them depicted the body of the Pope in an open cas.
According to a research by cybersecurity company Check Point, some AI-enabled images were distributed along with malicious links, along with malicious links that led to scams and fraudulent websites.
The Pope warned against such a deception in January, saying that AI technology could be “misused to manipulate the mind.”
The message became one of his final warnings about disinformation.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published by Syndicate Feed.)
