Several social media users posted a screenshot of an alleged story from a major English news outlet that said singer Shreya Ghoshal revealed private information during an interview that could hurt the nation’s economy. The news agency’s inquiry revealed that the English Daily had not published any such story and that the widely shared screenshot was a fake. A misleading assertion was made in the social media posts that were circulated.
On February 24, an X (formerly Twitter) posted a screenshot of an alleged story from The Indian Express that claimed that following a contentious interview, fans pushed for Shreya Ghoshal’s release. The caption of the X post, which garnered 12.5k views, read: “The Nation Reacts – How Do You Feel About It?”
The news agency discovered that multiple other people had posted the identical post with a similar claim after searching for the popular screenshot using Google Reverse Image.
At first, we searched Google using certain keywords, but we were unable to locate any reports from The Indian Express. However, upon clicking the link in the viral post, we discovered a number of inconsistencies: the article lacked a publication date, and clicking on the other hyperlinks took us to Immediate Fastx™, a platform that offers free registration for all new sign-ups and an easy-to-use interface. Additionally, the main link contained the text “https://innews.fixedsight.mom/.”
According to the post, supporters were incensed when Shreya was charged with disclosing private information that could hurt the nation’s economy.
“The incident occurred during the broadcast of the program “Mirchi Plus” during which Shreya Ghoshal accidentally revealed an additional source of income. Although this income is legal, authorities are concerned that disclosing this information could lead to mass layoffs by exposing income disparities,” read a section of the report. We quickly perused the full interview that was posted on Mirchi Plus’s official channel in the next section of the investigation, but we were unable to locate any such exchange.
The news agency came to the conclusion that the viral screenshot was a fake and that Shreya Ghoshal did not make such a statement after we contacted the Indian Express team for clarification in the next section of the investigation. The team responded by telling us that these fake websites are made to look exactly like The Indian Express’s and have been created to deceive, adding that they have been warning readers. “We have been warning readers for two years. Characters and links keep changing,” the team responded.
