?:reviewBody
|
-
A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times in Twitter and YouTube posts claiming it shows a boy stealing a bus in China in September 2021. The posts are misleading; the video has in fact circulated in news reports since 2017. On September 25, a child stole a bus and drove more than 100 kilometres to see friends, but was caught by the police, reads the Chinese-language caption to this video posted on the same day on Twitter. The video has been viewed more than 40,000 times. Screenshot taken on October 5, 2021, of the misleading Twitter post The same video was shared in similar posts here and here on Twitter, and here on YouTube. However, the posts are misleading. Keyword searches on Google found the footage corresponds to this footage published by Chinese state-run news site The Paper on July 1, 2017. The 2017 video is captioned in simplified Chinese: Nine-year-old naughty child stole bus and drove for six kilometres / Intercepted after 40 minutes. Below are screenshot comparisons of the video shared in misleading posts (left) and the video published by The Paper in 2017 (right). Screenshot comparisons of the video shared in the misleading posts (L) and the video published by The Paper (R) According to the report, the incident took place on June 30, 2017 in southeast China's Guangzhou city in Guangdong province. The incident caused no traffic accident, the text adds. The video also shows an interview with a local police officer who told The Paper he did not know how the boy got the key to the bus. The child was taken away by his parents without punishment due to his age, he added. The same incident was also reported by Chinese media organisations in 2017 -- for example Chinese state broadcaster CGTN here , and Chinese state news site Youth.cn here .
(en)
|