Facebook has clamped down on the viral theory that men in white vans abduct women and sell their body parts.
“Posts with this claim have been rated as false by third-party fact-checkers and we’re dramatically reducing their distribution,” a company spokesperson told the New York Post on Wednesday.
“People who see these false posts on Facebook, try to share them, or have already shared them will see warnings alerting them that they’re false,” he added.
Facebook’s statement followed a warning by Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. ‘Jack’ Young, who said in a TV interview on Monday that the authorities had been getting “reports of somebody in a white van trying to snatch up young girls for human trafficking and for selling body parts.”
.@mayorbcyoung says, “we’re getting reports of somebody in a white van trying to snatch up young girls for human trafficking and for selling body parts.
— Vanessa Herring (@VanessaWBAL) December 3, 2019
Adding, “it’s all over Facebook” & “that’s something that our police officers are aware of because its been reported.” #WBAL pic.twitter.com/k1y1o96z7T
“Don’t park near a white van,” he cautioned. “Make sure that you look at your surroundings and make sure you keep your cellphone in case somebody tries to abduct you.” When asked if the reports came from police, he answered that the story was “all over Facebook.”
A spokesman for Baltimore Police Department said they were aware of the posts but did not receive reports that the abductions by white vans actually happened.
Although there have been no reports in US media about systemic white-van kidnapping, posts spreading the fear have indeed been popping up across the country in the past years
CNN Business unearthed one 2016 post from a woman who claimed there was a white van outside her home and that there was “a guy in a white van kidnapping kids”. When approached for comment, the woman failed to provide any specific evidence to back up her claim but said that she heard it “plenty of times.”
A post from 15 November (now covered by a ‘false information’ warning) features a photo of a white van with external door locks, with the all-caps warning: “IF U SEE ANY VANS LIKE THIS CALL 911 THIS IS UTILIZED FOR SEX TRAFFICKING.”
Such posts went so viral that one home improvement worker in Detroit was harassed because of the white van he was driving.
“A lot of people have been following me, trying to pull me over, trying to look inside the van and stuff,” he told a local newspaper, saying that it all started with a Facebook video of a woman claiming she saw someone force a young girl into the back of a van in Detroit.
Baltimore has also seen an upsurge in white-van fearmongering in the past months on both Facebook and Instagram.
A similar panic engulfed social media in the Philippines, where a Facebook page posted CCTV footage showing a student being snatched in Manila and forced into a white van.
Manila police looked into the video and determined that it was a prank staged by a group of teenagers. A spokesman for the Philippine National Police was forced to make a public statement to quell fears.
