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| - The true story of the phone call from 13 or 4 numbers!
WhatsApp social media platform is a widely used medium to create and spread fake news, fake audios and videos in the present day. Below is an investigation we did regarding a false news that was created to mislead people.
Social media posts
Recently, such a message was circulated in WhatsApp social media and a video with a recorded voice.
This is a news that has just been received. Listen to this and share it among your friends. If you get a call from 13 or 4 numbers on your phone, don’t answer it no matter what. Your phone will explode immediately when you answer the phone. This has happened now and many people have died. In Singapore and India. I don’t know if this affects Sri Lanka as well. Don’t answer call from 13 or 4 numbers and share this to everyone.”
The photo showed a headless man sitting on a chair in a pool of blood. Although many people have recognized that this incident is not related to the voice message shared in WhatsApp, we have investigated the facts based on several requests we received to disclose the facts regarding the incident.
Fact Check
in the first investigation we made in this regard, we came to see than an investigative report conducted by an investigative group in India called ‘Youturn’ had revealed the true facts regarding this incident.
The facts contained in the voice message and the video and photos that were circulated have also been circulated in Indian social media claiming it as an incident in India. You can check the youturn facts here.
The actual background story of the photograph which was shown to be a death due to a phone explosion due to call from 13 or 4 numbers is a photo of an ADMK supporter being killed by three people in India.
The murdered person is a businessman named Mathivanan from VGP Nagar and the person was murdered while he was sitting outside his business place on August 2nd at around 10pm. You can refer to Indian news report regarding the incident from here, here and here.
The video taken at that time was mentioned in an Indian news channel as follows.
The video shows the chair where Mr. Mathivanan was killed and it appears that the background is the same as the photo shared on social media in Sri Lanka.
Below is a photo of the murdered Mr. Mathivanan.
also, international calls are mostly indicated by the codes belonging to those countries and we have not seen any reports of mobile phones exploding due to calls from numbers 4 or 13 or any other number.
Also read: A photograph of a model used to show a case of a young woman’s death due to her phone exploding.
However, as mentioned in the shared voice message, an inquiry was made to the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SL-CERT) to inquire about the possibility of a telephone explosion due to phone calls coming from 13 or 4 numbers.
They mentioned that since yesterday, public complaints have been received in this regard to the same group, and the story of phone calls from 13 numbers or 4, is baseless. They state that people are spreading false information to scare off people. They also confirmed that even of the phone explodes due to some fault, it will not explode due to a call received.
Therefore, the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team has emphasized not to believe this kind of misconception.
Also read: One-Ring Scam: What should you be worried about & what not?
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Conclusion:
Accordingly, our fact check can show the message circulated in WhatsApp indicating that a person died due to a phone explosion as a result of receiving a call from 13 or 4 numbers is a fake news and actually shows a photograph of a murder which took place in India. The Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team confirms that it did not happen due a phone explosion and that such explosions do not happen due to phone calls from such numbers. Accordingly, it can be said that this has been done to mislead and scare people.
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