The British Broadcasting Corporation has revealed that photos circulating on social media under the hashtag GazaUnderAttack are not images from the current airstrikes in Gaza.
In fact, many of the images of explosions and fire were taken during conflict in Iraq and Syria, while others date as far back as 2009, the BBC division #BBC Trending pointed out Tuesday.
GazaUnderAttack began trending on Twitter over the last week, with 375,000 tweets in seven days. Users tweet photos claiming to be of the airstrikes Israel is currently carrying out on Hamas targets in Gaza. Dozens of Palestinians, including children, have reportedly been killed in the blasts.
"This is not a matter of religion," tweeted one unnamed user, according to Breitbart.com "This is a matter of humanity #GazaUnderAttack."
But a photo the same user tweeted was not of the Gaza airstrikes. It was taken in Syria last month. Another pic the user tweeted was taken in Baghdad in 2007, the news site reported.
There have been other cases where social media pictures turned out to be false representations of the purported event.
"This misuse of pictures on social media is not particularly unique to this particular hashtag," BBC Arabic correspondent Abdirahim Saeed said on #BBCTrending. "We've seen this before in Syria, in Iraq, and you've got to keep an eye on who you're following, [and ask yourself] where did this picture come from?"
The BBC itself has used false pictures before. Two years ago the corporation faced backlash after it accidentally used a 2003 picture from Iraq for a story on the killings of children in Syria.
The photo shows an Iraqi child jumping over white body bags filled with skeletons, The Telegraph reported.
A caption said the photo came from an activist, but apparently the BBC could not independently verify the picture before it was published.
