Fact Check: Viral video of child killing mother over mobile phone addiction is scripted
A video is being widely shared on the social media platforms claiming a boy killed his mother after she snatched a mobile phone from him
Dozens of surveys over the past few years have highlighted the addiction of mobile phones among kids. With the availability of faster mobile data speeds across the length and breadth of the country, the gap between the children who use mobile phones in the rural and urban areas is rapidly decreasing.
A recent survey conducted by Saurashtra University of Gujarat concluded that children in rural areas are just as hooked on watching content on mobile phones as their urban counterparts. The study observed the watching screen time of nearly 2,700 participants aged between 2 to 10 years.
A video is going viral on social media highlighting the dangers of a mobile addiction among children. While sharing the video, which purportedly shows CCTV footage of an Indian family, social media users are claiming that "The mother was killed by her son after snatching a mobile from his hands.”
Claim: बच्चे से मोबाइल छीनना पड़ा मां को महंगा धोना पड़ा जान से हाथ खुद के बच्चे ने ले ली जान - इस वीडियो दी बहुत बड़ी सीख
When translated, it says, “The mother was killed by her son after snatching a mobile from his hands. This video is an eye opener for us.”
Fact Check:
During investigation, Telugu Post fact check team found that the viral video was scripted and it was made to create awareness among the people about the dangers of mobile addiction in children.
Using an InVid tool we extracted the keyframes from the viral video and performed a Google Reverse Image search on each of them. Among the list of several reshares of the viral video, we found that TV9 Kannada and another news portal Kannada Dunia have posted an article highlighting the fact that some social media users have claimed that the video is not a real incident but it was made to "create awareness” about the danger of mobile phone addiction in children.
As we continued our search to find the origin of the viral video, we came across a news article posted by Presswire18 which reported, “the viral video is not real but scripted. D-Intent Data has fact-checked the video and said that it is fake and scripted. Actually, the full version of this video has been shared on Facebook with an account named Ideas Factory.”
Taking a cue from the news article, we searched and found the “Ideas Factory” page with 554K followers on Facebook. We found the video and took a screenshot of the viral post. As the video quickly went viral on social media and many users criticized the creators for showing the young child killing his mother. You may not find the viral video on the “Ideas Factory” page as the creators have deleted it.
You may see similarities in the background details like walls, TV, painting hung on the wall and the shelf shown in the viral video (image below) with another video on their platform.
Hence, the claim that the mother was killed by her son after she snatched a mobile phone from him is false. The scripted video was reportedly made for awareness purposes. However, the danger of children’s addiction to mobile devices and related aggressive behaviour is real.