Two undated reports circulating on the Web that claim to show police sexually harassing suspected female drug users, are fabricated.
The fake, clickbait reports were published by at least four websites, three of which purport to be legitimate news sources. News5.balitang24-7.info and tvnews.balitang-totoo.com claimed in their headlines that the victim was a “female Ateneo student,” while global.wordnewspress.info claimed the woman was a “car show model.” Matindetokitangkita.club reported both as “victims” in the two stories it published.
- “Drug Suspek Na Estudyanteng Babae Ng Ateneo Pinaghubad At Pinatuwad Ng Mga Pulis (Female Ateneo student who is a drug suspect, ordered to strip and bend over by police) ”
- “PINATUWAD AT PINAHUBAD ng mga PULIS ang isang Babaeng Estudyante sa Ateneo na Suspek NILA sa DROGA (Police ordered one female Ateneo student suspected to be involved with drugs to strip and bend over)”
- “Suspek Sa Druga Na Isang CAR SH0W M0DEL Ang Sapilitan Pinaghubad At Pinatuwad Ng Mga Pulis. (Car show model who is a drug suspect, forcefully ordered to strip and bend over by police)”
- “TV Patrol News: Car show model na nahulihan ng hinihinalang ecstasy pinaghubad at pinatuwad’ ng mga pulis (caught with suspected ecstasy ordered to strip and bend over by police).”
These stories are fake.
All of the reports used as their content a July 2018 TV Patrol news report about Makati anti-drug police caught on video making a man and a woman strip and bend over, for their enjoyment.
However, the report did not give specifics about the woman, much less describe her as an Ateneo student or a car show model. It also did not name the alleged illegal drugs found on the individuals.
The fake reports likewise misled netizens with their graphics, using a screengrab of the male victim — who was topless — bending over in the TV Patrol report as its thumbnail. It also used a 2014 selfie of internet personality Rojean Delos Reyes as its “face” for the fake Ateneo victim, and a 2013 Flickr photo of model Red Dela Cruz as the car model victim.
In a Sept. 7 Facebook post, Delos Reyes refuted the claims that she is an Ateneo student and a drug addict. She also warned her followers about posts that make use of her photos to attract clicks.
The fake stories surfaced around the same time “ninja cops,” or members of the police force who are said to recycle seized illegal drugs,
were subject to scrutiny by legislators and other government officials.
The fabricated reports, which jointly could have reached over 11.3 million people, notably operate similarly to death hoaxes previously debunked by VERA Files, which make use of videos that stop playing after about six seconds.
Tvnews.balitang-totoo.com and global.wordnewspress.info also curiously share the same Google Adsense code (ca-pub-3721251444284582), while both share the Google Analytics code UA – 136436987 -2 with news5.balitang24-7.info, suggesting that there may be only one publisher behind these fake reports.
Top traffic generators of the posts are Facebook groups Taga DAVAO ORIENTAL ka kung… and Solid Sarah Z Duterte 2022, as well as Facebook page Balitang Tol.
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