EDITORIAL - False abduction claims must be dealt with seriously

It seems we have a modern version of Aesop’s fable “The boy who cried wolf.”

A 21-year-old college student claimed armed men tried to abduct him in Danao City recently. He went online with the claim and the news spread quickly in social media, with many netizens sharing the news and raising alarm and questions.

However, like the boy who cried wolf, he later had to admit he had made it all up. Now he is facing charges for alarm and scandal in relation to the Anti-Cybercrime Law for making the false claims.

We should not take false claims like these lightly. Here are just several reasons.

An abduction claim puts people on edge. The sad thing about many netizens is that they really don’t bother to check the veracity of anything put online and they immediately share “news” with others. As a result, what is false often spreads faster than what is true.

A false claim causes unnecessary use of resources. The resources policemen used to investigate the student’s claims could have been better used to look into other crimes that actually did happen. And we all know how our policemen have to make do with the little resources they have like personnel, gasoline, money, and time, among others.

A false claim can also cause the total opposite of panic, bringing on instead a false sense of security in people who may come to the conclusion that there are actually no such things as real abductors or abductions out there. As a result people might drop their guard on occasions when they should be on guard.

Unlike the boy who cried wolf who just had his sheep eaten, the college student will face charges and possible jail time. And rightfully so. This was not a prank by a teenager, at 21 years old he should have been more than capable of realizing the consequences his actions would lead to.

Spreading an abduction claim online is not unlike joking that you have a bomb while passing through a security check. However, it is also worse, because while you can easily take a bomb joke back and show the guards you are not really carrying a bomb, you can’t easily erase false news that has been spread throughout the internet.