The Zakynthos wildfire….that wasn’t…

It was a normal Friday night on Zakynthos when Zakynthos Informer spotted a breaking news Facebook post and video, that said a wildfire had broken out on the island. Immediately, the news spread and people started sharing it to Facebook, which started to cause concern and panic amongst locals and tourists.

Zakynthos Informer immediately checked the local news and their island contacts, including the fire department, only to discover there was no fire on the island. By this time, however, the post and its video, had been shared across Facebook 38 times and the video had over 30k views.

Zakynthos Informer tagged the post owners to say the information was incorrect, but the post remained live. They then messaged and tagged admins of other Zakynthos pages to let them know the information was wrong so that any shared posts could be removed.

The main posts still remained live with views and shares going up…spreading news across the world about the Zakynthos wildfire, that wasn’t…

Zakynthos Informer then directly messaged the original Facebook page owner, to explain the situation. Whilst waiting for a response, we screenshot the video image and uploaded it to Google reverse image search. The multiple return hits confirmed that the video was of a wildfire, on the mainland in the area of Agios Dimitris Koropi, Attiki.

Eventually, after receiving our messages and reverse image screenshot, the original post was taken down.

Be careful what you share! 

Millions of people use Facebook as their go to for information. At Zakynthos Informer we pride ourselves on getting the facts on anything that happens on our island, before posting. There are always two sides to a story and there can often be inconsistencies or fake news that ends up being innocently shared by Facebook users, which in the end can be incredibly harmful.

We’re not writing this post to “show off” or say “we saved the day” - we don’t care about that - we’re writing it to point out how badly misinformation can spread and cause serious upset and damage, and the steps it can take to sometimes get these situations resolved.

Last night there were parents on Facebook panicking about their children who were on holiday on Zakynthos.
Last night there were holidaymakers and visitors who worried that their holiday may have just turned into a nightmare.
Last night there were frustrated business owners and locals commenting to refute the information and being ignored.

None of this was necessary.

So please, before you share Facebook posts about the island and any serious incidents relating to it.
Stop and think.
​Is the post real?
Is the post from a reputable source?
Will the post do more harm than good?

We’re not the Facebook Police (what an awful job that would be right?), but we don’t want to see anyone upset or endangered because of inconsistent or fake posts, when a simple two minute check could go a long way to saving time, stress and a lot of aggravation.

If you'd like to learn more about the Do's an Don'ts of Fire Season we have some helpful advice on our website.

Click here for the Do's and Don'ts of Fire Season