Union Minister and BJP MP Giriraj Singh tweeted on December 24 – “Top 10 List of Most Corrupt Political Party in the World 2018 and Rahul Gandhi led congress making it all the way to 2nd spot …congratulations to the most corrupt political party.” In a little over two hours, Singh’s tweet attracted over 1,000 likes and 474 retweets.
The BJP MP termed the Congress a “shame for India”, basing his claims on an article by ‘bbcnewshub.com’, titled – “Top 10 List of Most Corrupt Political Party in the World 2018”. The article placed the Congress at the second position.
Giriraj Singh shares article by impostor BBC News website
The list shared by Singh was created by a fake news website posing as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The distinction between ‘bbcnewshub.com’ and the official bbc.com website is clear.
Furthermore, the poorly worded article is replete with grammatical errors. “…political parties do hire member or contenders, these parties are also to run and organize elections to decide the government of any country in the world,” reads its first paragraph.
The ludicrous ‘About us’ section of BBC News Hub also gives away its falseness. It states, “bbcnewshub.com is best place to provide complete, brief, correct, healthy and strong content for the respectable visitors which are related to all over the world. It provides the national and international current and all type of information.”
Falling for impostor websites – a recurring exercise
Alt News had earlier debunked the same list of ‘most corrupt political parties in the world’. Chairman of Manipal Global Education Mohandas Pai had fallen for this article that has been doing rounds on social media since July this year.
BBC News Hub had produced one more list that placed Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 7th place among the most corrupt politicians worldwide. Another fake news website ‘foxnewspoint.com’, imitating American news organisation Fox News, called PM Modi’s family the second most corrupt political family in the world.
[Watch: The menace of impostor websites and parody handles]
Despite debunking BBC News Hub in the past, Giriraj Singh shared its list to target Congress. The Union Minister had earlier claimed that a tweet by Rahul Gandhi was retweeted by Pakistan’s official defence account. This too turned out to be false as the handle belonged to an online forum that discussed the country’s defence issues.
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.
