Post frequently shared

Rumor causes panic among parents

That children are approached by strangers on their way to school and abducted: every parent’s worst nightmare(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH, Krone KREATIV)

A post has parents in a quiet small town in Upper Austria living in fear. They were worried that their children were in danger while playing outside or on their way to school because a warning had been shared countless times. The “Krone” fact-checked the story.

Within hours, a report spread like wildfire, particularly in the Innviertel region: Several masked men had allegedly attempted to kidnap a child!

Shared countless times on social media
And apparently not for the first time—see the message below, which was shared hundreds of times via social media channels—WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. “I saw it on Facebook and thought it was important to pass this information on,” said a bus driver from Braunau who shared the message in some nationwide groups.

“Didn’t pass the information on any further”
Auerbach Mayor Josef Seidl, in whose municipality the alleged attempted abduction is said to have taken place, also received the warning on his cell phone more than once. “But I didn’t forward it anymore because I didn’t know what was behind it,” says the mayor of the town of just under 900 residents in the Braunau district. “Years ago, there were already reports of a white van with a dark-skinned man inside who was said to have approached several children,” the mayor recalls. But nothing “came of it” back then either.

This post was shared countless times without verification and caused fear in the town.(Bild: Screenshot)

Mother wouldn’t let children ride their bikes to school
“We immediately asked our children if they knew anything and didn’t let them ride their bikes to school on Monday,” says a concerned mother. The “Krone” conducted a fact-check. However, there are no current or past reports on file with the police regarding alleged attempted child abductions. If such reports are officially received by law enforcement, they are taken seriously in any case, even if most turn out to be false alarms.

Origin Hard to Trace
“But you never know what’s behind it, so every report is investigated,” the police say. It’s hard to trace who posted the first “warning” online in this case, since it was shared so often and so quickly on social media.

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Tratschen 2.0

The WhatsApp group has always existed—back in the day, it was called “gossip.” “Did you know that”—and off it went with hearsay, rumors, and the like. Now we’ve long since arrived at Gossip 2.0; the speed of dissemination and the number of recipients have exploded.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Alexander Schwarzl, Markus Wenzel)

People question things just as little today as they did back when the “gossips”—by the way, meaning both women and men—met up somewhere. And the much-touted AI picks up misinformation just as readily as it does facts, as long as it’s posted online often enough. That’s why I like to ask in person whether something is true—and not just for work.