On September 19th, 2012 a video entitled “Pig rescues baby goat” was posted. This 29-second video has 10 million views now and can be seen at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7WjrvG1GMk. This became an internet sensation, but the truth was that it was completely fake. It took six months for this truth to be revealed. Five years later, a second video was posted entitled “Hero Pig Saves a Drowning Goat” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noTz20TB714). This video reveals how the original video was intricately fabricated and set up. That cute little pig was a trained animal used for movies guided by clear tracks built underwater. Lots of people were involved and had to sign nondisclosure agreements. This seems like an unnecessary amount of effort for a low-quality 29-second video, but it did exactly what was intended for. The Oakland Petting Zoo was suddenly well known. While this is not particularly harmful, the original video was technically a lie fabricated to gain attention. This is an example of “fabricated content,” which is described by Claire Wardle as
Fabricated content is that which is 100% false
(https://firstdraftnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Information_Disorder_Digital_AW.pdf?x38061). We can easily be fooled and manipulated by content found online. This should be kept in mind while we consume content in order to separate fabricated content from original content.
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