Squirrel abuse tale is fake, says Swinson

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS leader Jo Swinson has warned the public to be wary of sharing misinformation after a story went viral that claimed she had abused squirrels.

Doctored images claiming to show an article on the Mirror’s website were shared thousands of times across Twitter and Facebook last week, including by a number of pro-Brexit and Brexit Party groups.

The false story, written by nonexistent journalist “Wurrance Telephene”, claimed the Lib Dem leader was blasted by animal rights charities after “harrowing footage” was found on a Facebook account.

Speaking to LBC, she said: “This sort of fake news is surprising to me, now that I am the leader of a party. This isn’t the only one, there has been various other fake news story. Sometimes using the byline of an established journalist.

“I do think it’s worrying because it has echoes of what we’ve seen in other elections. Particularly when you think about fake news and the technological possibility for deep fakes, where videos can be faked. I think it’s very difficult to prevent the spread.”

Researchers at First Draft, a non-profit group fighting misinformation, found that the false story was originally circulated among anonymous pro-Labour accounts, confined to a fairly small section of Twitter. However, on November 5 a Medium post appeared, pushing the same fake claims. It claimed to be written by a Miranda Joyce, of the Milngavie Times, however neither the journalist nor the publisher exist.