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| - A post on Facebook claims a photograph shows a necklace that has been found in Fareham, Hampshire and seeks help in finding its owner.
The post is fake as the same photograph, which shows a cylindrical pendant and tree of life symbol on a neck chain also appears in local Facebook groups for Ashford, Tonbridge, South Shields and Tiverton, as well as dozens of other locations.
The Fareham post reads: “We are trying to find the owner of this necklace….It was found by my husband this morning when he was jogging here in Fareham. I'm sure someone out there is looking for it. Please help bump this post to find its owner and get it home safely.”
The other posts are identical except that the name of the location where the necklace is said to have been found changes to match that of the local group in which the post appears.
There is no evidence that the necklace pictured has been found in any of these locations. Although Full Fact was not able to find the original source of the picture, we have found many posts with the same text and image being shared in groups across multiple American states including Wisconsin, Illinois and Florida, as well as other UK locations.
The posts follow a similar format to others we’ve checked in the past that have used images copied from elsewhere to claim they are looking for the owners of lost dogs or missing relatives, as seen in our investigation into hoax posts that we published last year.
In most cases, the people who created these posts have turned the comments off. As detailed in our guide to spotting hoax posts, this is one of a number of strong indicators that a post is likely to be a hoax, as it prevents anyone from leaving warnings for others.
Derbyshire Police has also warned that posts like these with comments turned off are likely to be hoaxes as those genuinely looking to reunite a lost item with its owner would not do so.
We regularly fact check similar hoax posts in Facebook groups, such as reports of missing children, elderly relatives or pets. We have seen instances in which these sorts of posts are edited later to offer cheap housing, links to surveys or other freebies.
Hoaxes can damage people’s trust in local community news, because groups can become overwhelmed with false information. As a result, genuine posts may be ignored or dismissed as false.
We have written to Meta expressing these concerns and asking the company to take stronger action in response to this problem.
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