Meanwhile, it has been concluded by the French authorities that the mastermind of the Paris terrorist attacks was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, a Belgian man who has fought for the Islamic State in Syria, NY Times reported. In the doctored version, he’s pictured holding a Quran instead of the iPad, and he appears to be wearing a vest filled with explosives. The image had reached such wide circulation that it was even published on the front page of a Spanish newspaper on Sunday morning with the caption “one of the terrorists”.
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The photoshopped image circulated on social media claiming that it was a photograph of one of the terrorists who recently attacked Paris.
Several flaws in the Photoshopped image were also pointed out: the turban is worn by Sikhs, there are North American power outlets on the mirror, and Korans generally can not take selfies.
Bombarded with mentions on Twitter, Mr Jubbal was quick to point out he had never been to Paris and was in fact a Canadian Sikh. Lives in Canada. This whole thing puts me in a bad position in the sense, where I could be harmed and/or hurt due to this. This is libel from news, and TV. “In gauging this entire incident-millions upon millions of people have seen the photoshopped images, and have placed me as a terrorist”. Check out his Twitter timeline here. It was suggested that the pictured man is one of the Paris attackers.
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It’s not clear who was responsible for creating the photoshop, but journalists and social media members who spread the picture without incredulity are also to blame for their racism, Islamophobia, and ignorance of Sikhism. All of this was based on unverified sources, and proved to be incorrect in the end. However it was picked up by many social media participants and main stream media. Gamergate’s harassment of its critics has also included doxxing and “swatting”, the practice of making a false report to police so that law enforcement descends on the targeted person’s house with a SWAT team.
