Conspiracy theories have been floating around since coronavirus started to take hold. But, one Manchester, England woman was unknowingly tangled in this web of lies.
Sarah-Louise Cooper told BuzzFeed News that her friends informed her that her pictures were being used to spread a fake story about the coronavirus pandemic on Facebook.
"Every single photo is mine," Cooper said in regard to the fake Facebook profile. "It makes me laugh that people are that pathetic that they’ve got to use somebody else’s pictures."
Recently, a woman named Sara Faith appeared on Facebook. Faith sent out a post that went viral on the site claiming that coronavirus was used as her Uncle David's cause of death despite him passing away from cancer. The post was shared over 30,000 times and Facebook groups dedicated to denouncing the coronavirus used Faith's post as evidence.
But, there was one problem. Sara Faith isn't a real person. The Sara Faith profile was comprised of Sarah Cooper's photos in an effort to catfish people into believing the story.
"I don’t have an uncle called David," Cooper said to BuzzFeed News.
Cooper and her friends reported the account on multiple occasions. Eventually, they were able to get the posts removed and the account deleted.
Unfortunately, Cooper isn't the only social media user going through these issues. Fake accounts are being used to help promote anti-vax rhetoric and coronavirus conspiracies. Although Facebook and other sites have been working to crack down on these profiles, it's hard to prove that they're fake.
"When you don’t know who the source really is it makes it a lot harder to verify if it’s true or false," the fact-checking site Full Fact said. "If there isn’t a named source to the information, think twice before sharing it."
