The continued proliferation of fake news has led a gunman to shoot up a pizzeria and has forced the Pope to compare it to getting turned on by feces. But it’s not unimaginable to think that the untrue news items could lead to even direr consequences. Like nuclear war, for instance.
According to news reports, AWD News posted a fake story in which a former Israel defense minister said the country would destroy Pakistan with nuclear force if the country sent fighters into Syria.
That report was fake, but this tweet made by Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s defense minister, was all too real.
https://twitter.com/KhawajaMAsif/status/812370140507545600
Asif immediately faced online backlash for the vaguely threatening tweet, especially since the fake news story wrote that Israel’s Foreign Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon made the initial comment when, in fact, he left that job last May. Israel also has never publicly confirmed it even has nuclear capabilities, so for a government official to cavalierly bring it up in the way Ya’alon was alleged to have done wouldn’t have made much sense.
Even so, Israe’s Ministry of Defense took to Twitter to respond.
The statement attributed to fmr Def Min Yaalon re Pakistan was never said
— Ministry of Defense (@Israel_MOD) December 24, 2016
reports referred to by the Pakistani Def Min are entirely false
— Ministry of Defense (@Israel_MOD) December 24, 2016
Asif has not yet responded on Twitter.