A YouTube video misleadingly claimed that an overseas Filipino worker was beheaded for taking a selfie.
YouTube channel Trending News posted the video on Sept. 13 with the title:
TV Patrol OFW pinugutan sa Saudi dahil sa pagseselfie (OFW beheaded in Saudi for taking a selfie)
The news report was from a TV Patrol Weekend news package posted on YouTube in 2014, according to InVID’s video analysis tool and Google reverse image search of keyframes. It was about a Filipino executed for shooting and running over his Saudi Arabiam employer in 2010, and not about a Filipina who was beheaded for taking a selfie, as the title and thumbnail claimed.
[Update: The URL now leads to a channel owned by Malec Ambiong. The video also bears a new headline: "OFW pinugutan sa Saudi dahil sa nagpositibo sa C0R0NA VlRUS" (OFW beheaded in Saudi Arabia for testing positive for the coronavirus).]
A reverse image search also shows the woman in the manipulated thumbnail is Malaysian actress and model Emma Maembong. A similar photo appeared in the Dec. 21, 2014 Twitter post of Malaysian radio network ERA.
The reverse image search also reveals that the center photo in the thumbnail is about the public execution of Khaled al-Sha’er Mulhallal on July 15, 1977 for having an affair with Saudi Princess Mashaal bint Fahd al Saud,according to Russian website Vechno S nami and British docudrama Death of a Princess (1980).
Trending News’s YouTube channel has 14 videos and 110 subscribers. Most of the content have misleading or false titles. The channel was created on March 23, 2014 and has more than 950,000 total views. (EB)
References
ABS-CBN News. (2014, December 14). TV Patrol: OFW, pinugutan sa Saudi dahil sa pagpatay [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBeQD0mO0MY
Anna. (2014, October 12). Bint Fahd Al-Saud Mishaal. Vechnosnami.ru. Retrieved from http://vechnosnami.ru/5208.html
ERAdotje. (2014, December 21). #InstaArtis:Muka Emma Maembong dinaiki jerawat yang banyak meskipun dia takde masalah tu sebelum ni. Sumber #Hlive”. [Twitter post]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/ERAdotje/status/546923165171978240
Sabillo, K.A., & Corrales, N. (2014, December 13). Filipino beheaded in Saudi Arabia for murder. Inquirer.net. Retrieved from https://globalnation.inquirer.net/115536/filipino-beheaded-in-saudi-arabia-for-murder
Saudi2014. (2010, October 16). Death of a Princess 2 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0hBMFKhCyE