No, the Filipino comedian Vice Ganda has not died
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 13, 2018 at 13:00
- 1 min read
- By AFP Philippines
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Multiple websites, such as this one,reported that Vice Ganda, a highly popular cross-dressing comedian, was dead.
When the reports are shared on Facebook, they are accompanied by a thumbnail image made to look like a still from a televised news report. The headline on the image reads: “Vice Ganda dead after he was shot in the head, as captured on CCTV”.
Clicking on the link on Facebook leads to an online post with a different headline: “Vice Ganda, dead after he was carjacked in front of his house earlier - CCTV Report.”
Some of the sites carrying the reports also used URLs that gave the appearance of being linked to genuine, well-known news sites, such as “wrappler.info”, wrappler.info/#buyaem/535483, which is very similar to online Philippine news site www.rappler.com.
Dozens of false reports stating that Vice Ganda had died have been shared at least 90,000 times on Facebook in one week. They are apparently aimed at driving traffic to the sites and boosting their advertising revenue.
However, since the reports surfaced online Vice Ganda has appeared in his noontime show “Showtime,” which is aired live on local broadcast network ABS-CBN.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
