“Brutal Terrorist Attack” hoaxes go viral

A large surge of fake news articles purporting to be reporting on a breaking “brutal terrorist attack” are spreading across the Internet, mostly attributing the attacks to ISIS.

The fake news articles each target different cities across the UK and are near identical in their content with only minor details – such as the town/city name – changed.

For example, one article claims an ISIS terrorist attack kills 24 people and wounded 89. Another claims that 27 people were killed and 126 wounded in an attack in Gillingham. Identical articles also target Bedford, Basingstoke, Telford, Cheltenham, Ellesmere Port, Cardiff, Rotherham and many more.

The articles have appeared on a number of newly created websites that use simple templates designed to make the sites look like online media websites. An example of one of these fake news articles is below in part –

Gillingham— Disputes between terrorists are believed to be partially responsible for more than four dozen shootings in which 27 people were killed over the six hour.
over the six hour, gunfire wounded 126 people across the city, according to police.
Lewis said investigators don’t believe any of the shootings are related to each other.
“We don’t have anything that connects these cases,” she said. “But there were several shootings with multiple victims.”
One of the fatal shootings occurred around 8:40 p.m. Sunday on the city’s west side.
“Witnesses reported that they heard shots and observed the suspect running in an alley,” Officer Nicole Kirkwood said. “The suspect is a white male, about 5-foot-8, with long hair, wearing a green shirt and blue jeans.”
The victim was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, Kirkwood said.
According to WDIV-TV (Channel 4), the 51-year-old was shot after an argument inside a liquor store at West McNichols and Wildemere. The suspect forced the victim at gunpoint into the victim’s vehicle, police said. The victim began to drive but was shot about a block away while attempting to escape.

We have seen dozens of these articles, yet none of them are true. Most of them have now been debunked by local media or police in the areas mentioned in specific versions of this trending hoax, including Swindon and Ellesmere Port.

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It appears that very similar hoaxes also spread in October 2015, a few months ago from the time of writing, only this time they were attributing the incidents to “disputes between drug dealers” yet the general template of the story remains very similar. For example a variant of the rumour claimed such an incident occurred in the city of Bath, UK, and again was soon debunked by local media there.

The fake stories have attracted thousands of visitors and caused much concern, and the hoaxers seem to be setting up these hoax stories simply for financial gain, since these sites have plenty of sponsored adverts installed on them and at least one website attempted to lure visitors into clicking a “click to close” pop-up box that had a sponsored advert hidden behind it, thus artificially causing advert clicks, which generate money for the hoaxers.

Be careful where you get your online news and stick to reputable websites only.