An article describing an “Assam rape festival” that lasts a week is a satire story from a fake news website. But locals in the northern India state don’t find it humorous.
The article, published on the National Report website--a U.S.-based organization that publishes fake news--appears to make fun of the high-profile rape cases in India that have made headlines in recent years.
The spoof article says that the festival “began in 43 BC” and hands out a “trophy” to a person who commits the most rapes. The article has generated more than 700,000 shares on Facebook.
However, the National Report, which doesn’t offer a clear disclaimer, said in an archived page: “National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.”
The publication has satire articles, similar to The Onion, including “God Smites Australia With Plague of Spiders” and “MO Woman Possessed by Demon after Signing Up for ObamaCare.”
But the Assamese community in India isn’t laughing.
“There was no disclaimer saying the article is a spoof. People mistook it for fact,” said Simanta Sharma, the head of the Assam Society Of Bangalore (ASOB), according to the Times of India.
And association general secretary Dipankar Kalita added that he “got several calls from people after the article went viral. I can explain it to one caller, but how can we tell the whole world the news is fake? It has brought so much shame on us.”
On social media sites, a number of Indians were horrified.
Simanta said that a defamation case was registered against the website. “We hope to get a response by next week. Meanwhile, we have told members of our community not to get worked up as the report was meant to be a spoof,” he said.
