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Fact Check
Several social media users shared an advertisement which shows a person sitting inside a car, wearing a suicide vest. The man in the video drives the car to a public place and tries to detonate a bomb. However, the explosion is contained within the car. The tagline at the end reads: ‘Polo. Small but tough’.
Social media users shared the video claiming that Volkswagen made fun of Muslims by showing that their cars are strong enough to handle even a bomb.
BJP leader Tajinder Bagga also shared the video on Twitter and Facebook with a caption which reads: “Terrorist Commercial Ad by Volkswagen. Interesting?”
Another Social media user Sudhir Srivastav also shared the video with a caption which suggests that the German automobile company Volkswagen ad mocks Muslims.
We started fact-checking whether the video that’s viral on social media is a recent one or is an old video. With the help of ‘InVid,’ we got multiple keyframes of the video. By using a reverse-image search on one of the keyframes, we found a video uploaded by a news channel, ABC 10 News. The video was uploaded on June 2, 2017.
The video claimed that Volkswagen had nothing to do with an advertisement featuring a suicide bomber. The video was made by Lee Ford and Dan Brooks who are specialised in making spoofs.
Taking a cue from the video, we performed a Google search and found a report by The Guardian, which was published on January 23, 2005. According to the report, Volkswagen UK took legal action against the makers of the spoof video after gaining approval from the firm’s worldwide headquarters in Germany.
The similar report was published by The New York Times on January 27, 2005 with a headline which reads, ‘Fake Commercial Spots Spread Quickly on the Internet’.
It is evident from our fact check that a 2005 spoof video is being shared on social media falsely claiming that Volkswagen made an advertisement to mock Muslims.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jan/31/newmedia.advertising
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/business/fake-commercial-spots-spread-quickly-on-the-internet.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0w4eIgndJU&feature=emb_logo
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