Fake Amazon rain forest fire images are misguiding on social networks

Social media helped increase coverage of the wildfires, but it’s likewise contributing to false information. BRAZIL– Social media assisted increase protection of the wildfires, but it’s likewise contributing to false information.
Yes, there is are real fires taking place in the Amazon rain forest, and humans are most likely the cause of the blazes. However yes, there are also a great deal of the images being shared are either old images of past Amazon fires or photos of different fires faked to look like its in the Amazon.
In Brazil alone, there are 80% more fires in 2019 than there were in 2015, according to the nation’s space research center. More than half of the fires in Brazil remain in its Amazon region.
Satellite images are helping reveal just how many fires there are, and how much of their smoke has spread out across the country.
Images on social media are conflating the existing crisis with previous fires.
One such picture– among the most-shared images on social media– shows a lavish forest with a huge wall of smoke billowing from a fire.
Musical artist and actor Jaden Smith shared the image on his Instagram, where it gathered over a million likes. YouTube star Logan Paul shared the image on Twitter, too.
Yes, the image reveals the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. It’s not of the present fires. It’s more than 20 years old: the Guardian, which republished the photo in 2007, states it was taken in June 1989.
Entertainment sites like and UNILAD both are running the photo on their sites. Their social media posts plainly including the image have tens of thousands of shares.
Another picture making the rounds on social networks claims to also reveal the Amazon jungle on fire.
Leonardo DiCaprio shared it on his Instagram and it has over 3 million likes.
Even the Jungle Trust, which is asking people to contribute to help stop logging, shared it on its Twitter account.
But it’s definitely not revealing the present fires in the Amazon. CNN discovered it on a site published in 2018.
Actor David Licauco shared four images– all of which are not of the existing wildfires in the Amazon. 2 aren’t even of an Amazon wildfire. The top image is from a 2018 wildfire in Sweden; the bottom is of a wildfire in Montana on August 6, 2000.
The most heartbreaking photos being shared are the charred remains of animals, or animals trying to get away wildfires. Blogger Nathalie Muñoz published a series of images about the Amazon rain forest fires.
The photo of the monkey weeping, holding a smaller sized monkey, isn’t in the Amazon. It was taken in Jabalpur, India, by Avinash Lodhi sometime in April 2016. And the picture of the burned bunny is from the 2018 wildfire in Malibu, California.
This content was originally published here.