Categories
FACT CHECK

VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Online post MISLEADS with dated photo of Angelica Panganiban

An online post circulating on social media bearing a photo of actress Angelica Panganiban in a hospital is misleading.

Pinoynewsfeed.com’s Sept. 27 report bore the headline, “Explanation behind Angelica Panganiban’s ‘I give up’ photo,” and claimed that the ABS-CBN actress “recently” posted on her Instagram Stories account a photo of herself in a hospital bed wearing a surgical mask.

The story also said Panganiban was “currently working on a movie” to be directed by Dan Villegas and produced by Black Sheep, with her former boyfriend and colleague, Carlo Aquino.

It said the release date of the film “is yet to be announced.”

The report is misleading.

Panganiban posted the photo on her Instagram account July 23, 2018, over two months before pinoynewsfeed.com published its report. She did not disclose the reason for her hospitalization.

A simple Google search revealed a report with the exact same headline was published by website pinoynewsfeed.net on July 25, 2018, around the same time most legitimate news and entertainment websites came out with the story. The report has since been deleted.

Both pinoynewsfeed websites share one Google Adsense ID (ca-pub-7139487320095123), suggesting that only one individual or group is behind them.

Google Adsense is a program run by Google to track and manage website advertisements. Each publisher is given a unique ID, or identifier that may be used across several websites the publisher owns.

The misleading post came out two days after Panganiban’s movie with Aquino, “Exes Baggage,” premiered on Sept. 26.

The misleading post has garnered almost 6,200 interactions on Facebook, and could have reached at least 41,925,700 people. Its top generators are Facebook pages Cracker Videos, Sweet Message, and Unhappy.

Pinoynewsfeed.com was created Aug. 22, 2017.

(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)