Summary:
Social media has been awash with a video that has gone viral with the purported rescue of a man aged 188 years from a cave. Uploaded to the “Concerned Citizen” account on X, the video gained 29 million views soon after it went live, depicting an aged man supported by two individuals. The story of such an extraordinary age instantly drew doubts, which entailed attempts that considered the story to be staged.
The Viral Claim: Is This Man Really 188 Years Old?
When a post with the name Concerned Citizen X, which used to be a twitter account, went viral there was a video with an old man reputed to be at least 188 years old being rescued from a cave. The video, which received 29 million hits in a few hours, showed two individuals helping the barely mobile man, whose life was outlined as “amazing” in subtitles. But unlike the miracle of a man who lived for nearly two hundred years this tale did not take long to be refute.
🇮🇳 This Indian Man has just been found in a cave.
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) October 3, 2024
It’s alleged he’s 188 years old. Insane. pic.twitter.com/a7DgyFWeY6
While the video was being replayed, factual checkers, journalists, and users in social networks asked themselves if such a statement was possible. As the man was not positively identified or had his age confirmed from any historical record, the experts and paranormal enthusiasts decided to look for the source of the video and that led to the revelation.
Investigations Reveal More Questions than Answers
The released video also received the interest of the communities within the internet and critics in anthropology and gerontology. Dr. Laura Hughes, speaking about human aging, mentioned: “The chances of somebody living to 188 are pretty small at present relying on the scientific facts and the current view on life expectancy.” All the well-known gurus are in agreement that the human beings, no matter how healthy they may have been, can hardly live more than a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty at most.
Several independent fact-checking organizations quickly dismissed the claim in an investigation. The test was to get an outrageous video to go viral; and that it did for the creators of the piece released via social media platforms. Moreover, the man in the video was claimed by locals to be a 90-year old villager, not the 188 years as it was suggested.
Demand for postings; public reaction; spread of disinformation
Such exposure of a video is an indication of how quickly fake news goes viral in the modern society. People reacted, some of them from what they saw on social media, some of them skeptical and did not believe the story. One X user said in response to the post: “At first, I thought this is amazing, but I felt that something was off.” “I thought it was fake news like so many other stories I have read so I am not shocked that the story was a fallacy.”
While some people were outraged at the content of the message, and the fact that it fooled so many people, others seemed to astound at the way the information was popularized almost immediately. “Well, this is why we require more efficient methods of radicalization of fake news,” noted Jordon Peter’s, Cyber Security Analyst noting on impact of improper dissemination of disinformation to society.
The History of Longevity Claims
This is not the first time when extraordinary statements on human lifespan have been heard. In history, there also many myths and legends, and thus far unproven claims supposedly people who are more than 120 years old. One of the best examples probably could be considered a story of a Chinese herbalist Li Ching-Yuen who was believed to be more than 200 years old. However, as in the recent popular post, there was no evidence of this.
Meanwhile, to give the public such sensation and unverified information that can be easily created in the digital world and shared in seconds, one must keep in mind that the majority of sensational news are fake news.
Conclusion: The Importance of Fact-Checking in the Viral Age
The story was reported to be of an 188-year-old man and might just have been a myth, but its lesson is not lost on anyone – word gets around fast, and so does fake news these days. The fact that stories – real or imagined – can go viral on social media sites is a reminder that users and social media platforms need to get smarter. From now on, it is not only the tech companies that need to be fighting fake news but every user as well.
It is for this reason that social media MUST increase the identification procedures for users to eliminate fake news from the surface of the platform. For users, having a few seconds in their day to do just that – check things and cross-check sources – might tip a page from disinformation paralysis to informed action.
Title: The World’s Oldest People
URL: https://www.guinessworldrecords.com/world-records/oldest-person-ever
