偽情報がゾンビのように復活　「レイプ・デー」デマ、今年も拡散

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】２０２１年４月、同月２４日は性暴力が犯罪と見なされない「ナショナル・レイプ・デー」だとする主張が、動画投稿アプリ「ティックトック」で拡散し、複数のファクトチェック機関により根も葉もないデマだと結論付けられた。全く同じデマが、今年もティックトックで広まった。（写真は資料写真。）
　「レイプ・デー」の偽情報が再び拡散されたことにより、一部のユーザーはスタンガンや拳銃を携行するとし、また中には「安全装置を外した銃器」を持ち歩くとする書き込みも見られた。
　ＡＦＰでは、このデマの影響で暴力犯罪が発生したという報告は確認していない。
　メディア監視団体「メディア・マターズ」は、偽情報の拡散抑止において専門家による論破には限界があると主張する。
　こうした状況についてティックトックの広報担当者は「卑劣な行為を助長するコンテンツが発見された場合、削除する」とＡＦＰに回答した。
　米ペンシルベニア州立大学でメディアの影響を研究しているＳ・シャム・サンダー氏は、「人の本能的な恐怖や欲望に付け込むセンセーショナルな話は、過去にデマだと結論付けられているかどうかにかかわらず、偽情報として常に格好のネタになる」と指摘する。
　「デマは、その時々の有効期限は短いかもしれないが、何十年も消えず、時折また出回る」
　米のメディア専門教育研究機関ポインター・インスティチュートのローラ・デュクロス氏は、何度指摘されてもデマが復活する状況を「ゾンビ」になぞらえている。
　デュクロス氏は、デマの拡散を止めるのはユーザー次第で、「偽情報をシェアする前に十分に配慮」するかどうかだと話す。今回の場合は、「ナショナル・レイプ・デー」というキーワードで検索すれば、信頼できる機関によるさまざまなファクトチェックにたどり着ける。
　サンダー氏は、同じデマが今年も再び拡散されたのは、まさに心理学で「スリーパー効果」（時間の経過とともに情報の信ぴょう性が忘れ去られてしまうこと）と呼ばれる現象にほかならないと説明。
　「デマだと指摘するメッセージを折に触れて発信する必要性」があると付け加えた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/05/02-16:51）

The hoax that rape was legal for a day was knocked down by fact-checkers two years ago. But it went viral again this year on TikTok, illustrating what researchers call zombie misinformation.
The stomach-churning falsehood that groups of men have declared April 24 as National Rape Day, giving them free rein to commit sexual violence, crept its way to TikTok fame in 2021, sparking alarm in countries including the United States and Britain.
In a sea of videos, many with millions of views, terrified women declared plans to lock themselves in their rooms all day and men vowed to protect them against imaginary assailants.
In one, a hulking bare-torsoed man appeared to sharpen an axe with a whetstone, warning troublemakers not to touch anyone I know.
An 11-year-old girl in Britain afraid of being raped went to school armed with knives, local media reported citing police officials.
TikTok users seized on reports of unrelated sexual crimes just before April 24 that year as evidence of the lurking threat, lending further credence to the myth.
Multiple fact-checking organizations debunked the misinformation. But that did not nip it in the bud.
This year, the hoax went viral on the same platform once again, the watchdog group Media Matters for America said, underlining what researchers say are the limits of debunking to stop or even slow the spread of misinformation.
We call these kinds of situations zombie claims, meaning they are rumors that keep popping up, no matter how many times you debunk it, said Laura Duclos, from MediaWise, a digital media literacy initiative of the nonprofit Poynter Institute.
Some zombie claims pop up because they are related to a certain event or date, Duclos told AFP.
- 'Fodder for misinformation' -
Raising alarm about the return of Rape Day this year, TikTok users declared their intention to carry tasers, handguns, and in one video, a firearm with the safety (catch) off.
While AFP is not aware of any official reports of violent crimes because of the hoax, it lays bare the dangerous potential of even debunked falsehoods to whip up threats, hysteria and chaos.
When asked about TikTok's response to the hoax, a spokesman told AFP that content promoting this despicable behavior would be removed if it was found on our platform.
Words such as rape are suppressed by TikTok, with a search redirecting users to a helpline and educational resources. But some videos can go completely undetected if they use no obvious keywords in their posts.
Users promoting the hoax also found workarounds such as r@pe and national r day.
Last week, the platform appeared to crack down on the loopholes immediately after AFP shared with the TikTok spokesman a screenshot of multiple Rape Day videos that came up using those search words.
Searches using those two workarounds now yield no results found.
TikTok ought to get smarter about preventing such hoaxes by rigorously studying patterns of how they spread, said S. Shyam Sundar, co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University.
Sensational stories that prey on people's innate fears and desires are always going to be a fodder for misinformation, regardless of whether they have been debunked in the past, Sundar told AFP.
Hoaxes may have a short shelf life but can linger in the warehouse for decades only to be recycled every now and then.
- 'Game of telephone'
The precise origin of this hoax in April -- observed as sexual assault awareness month -- is unclear.
According to Media Matters, its earliest mention was a 2021 tweet that cautioned people in Britain that boys have made a 'national rape day' and urged them to carry deterrents such as pepper spray for safety.
The message quickly spread on TikTok, going viral.
It's common for misinformation to start on one platform and jump to others, losing context and making it that much harder to find the original source of the information, said Duclos.
At that point you're playing essentially a game of telephone.
Stopping a wildfire hoax, Duclos said, is down to users exercising due diligence before resharing misinformation -- which in this case could be a simple keyword search of national rape day that leads to multiple fact-checks from credible outlets.
The fact that this lie has re-emerged... demonstrates what psychologists call a 'sleeper effect,' Sundar said.
The upshot of this is that users and the platform ought to realize that debunking is not as long-lasting as the actual information, underscoring the need to reinforce the debunking message every so often.
burs-ac/bfm