Vile YouTube claim: Bombing was hoax

GOOGLE is hosting sick claims on its video platform YouTube that the Manchester bombing was a hoax.

A series of repugnant videos – mostly posted anonymously – claim the whole event was ‘staged’ by the Government or that it never took place at all.

Although Facebook has introduced measures to ‘flag’ fake news, YouTube, which is owned by Google, has yet to follow suit, meaning there is no way for viewers to be informed of a video’s highly dubious status.

Scores of videos, some claiming no-one had died in the attack and that witnesses seen in the media were ‘actors’, had racked up hundreds of thousands of views by last night.

One of the clips is entitled ‘Ariana Grande Manchester Arena Bombing, Just More Government Terrorism’. Others make spurious claims that the bombing was organised by Zionists or the Illuminati, which conspiracy theorists suggest is a secret society which controls the world.

Last night, politicians condemned the videos as ‘an insult’ and called on Google to get a grip on fake news on its platform.

Tory Andrew Bridgen said: ‘You only have to see the interviews with relatives of those who died to know that this is not fake news. Go and tell that to Manchester.

‘These videos are not only fake news, they are distasteful fake news. It reflects extremely badly on YouTube.’

Labour’s Helen Goodman added: ‘Everyone who cares for liberty must unite in tackling this evil. That includes the social media companies who have a critical communications role in modern societies.’