IN A FACEBOOK group dedicated to finding rooms to rent in Dublin, someone posted about a distressing discovery.

“This little boy, approximately 2 years old, was found an hour ago in Dublin,” the post began, accompanied by two photos of a blonde toddler.

In both photos, published on 6 October, the boy appeared to be injured, with swelling at his mouth and forehead.

“Officers [are holding] the child safe at the police station, but we have no idea where he lives,” the post continued. “No one has called looking for him. Please bump this post.”

Plenty of people acceded to the request.

At the time of writing, the post has garnered 570 reactions and been shared on Facebook more than 4,200 times.

However, a search of Facebook reveals that the child had apparently gone missing before: other posts claim the same boy had been found wandering streets in England and even the United States.

Such posts, which feature injured children found alone on city streets, may be shocking — but they are not rare.

It turns out that they are also untrue and a form of misinformation.

Posts about found children, injured animals and missing persons are regularly posted to Irish social media groups where they generate massive responses, despite being copies of near-identical hoaxes found on other parts of social media.

The images used in these posts are often stolen from news stories or other social media pages and often depict real-life victims. 

Pattern of behaviour

The post in the Dublin renting group was not the first time the missing boy’s images had appeared on Facebook alongside an appeal to find his parents.

It follows a pattern of behaviour in local Facebook groups around the world, where seemingly irrelevant images of missing people appear and are then widely re-shared.

In the weeks before, two other people had posted about the blonde boy in other groups — though his supposed personal details differed in each case.

“This little boy, approximately 3 years old, was found about 1 hour ago in Lynchburg,” another post in a community group for a city in the US state of Virginia began on 3 September this year.

That text was accompanied by the same photos of a distressed blonde toddler, and a claim that no adult had called police looking for him.

The next day, 4 September, an almost identical post was published on a UK-based Facebook group called “Streatham, Croydon, Brixton, Norwood and surrounding areas buy and sell group”.

It had the same photos of the injured child, but this time the post claimed the boy had been found in south London.

Nor was it the first time a post about a missing child had appeared in a Dublin renting group.

On 14 May, images of another boy — also blonde, but wearing space rocket pyjamas and with dozens of cuts on his swollen face — were shared in a different group, but with a remarkably similar caption to the photos of the boy that were shared in October.

“This little boy, approximately 2 years old, was found in Dublin 1 hour ago,” it said.

Once again, reverse image searches by The Journal found that Dublin was not the only city that this child had supposedly been found in.

In this case, authorities in other countries were able to quickly put rumours about the boy to rest.

“A post about a child being found in Patterson is a hoax according to Interim Patterson Police Chief Nick Strickland,” The Blackshear times, a newspaper in the US state of Georgia, reported.

It showed the same photo of the wounded child who appeared in the Dublin renters’ Facebook group in May.

Police in the neighbouring US state of Kentucky explained why people might be sharing such photographs.

“The picture of the child below is some type of scam,” a social media post by the Rowan County Sheriff said, which featured the same photo that they speculated was manipulated.

“It appears scammers use these types of heart-wrenching stories to entice people to share the post so they can scam your information.”

However, while the story is fake, the picture is real. The Journal was able to trace the original image to local news coverage in the US state of Georgia following the mauling of a two-year-old by a pair of large dogs outside his home in 2014.

Phishing scam

Gardaí are aware of the scam operating here, and the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau (GNCCB) has issued advice confirming that the posts are part of “a phishing scam”.

The bureau also outlined how the scam works: essentially by luring people in by tugging at their heartstrings first, and then ensuring continued attention through subsequent updates. 

“The posts are designed to gather public attention and to entrust social media users to the account posting the fake missing child alert,” it said.

“A separate post is then issued on the same thread stating that the child has been found and directing members of the public to a property advertisement.

“At that stage, users trust the account and follow the link in the advertisement. The link redirects them to a phishing page where any personal information they enter is captured and used for online criminal activity.”

Phishing scams then attempt to steal data from the victim. 

Ken Sheehan, Operations Manager with security company Smarttech247 told The Journal that this usually involves trying to get victims’ usernames or bank details. 

However, false posts such as these aren’t limited to claims about humans.

The Journal has seen other suspicious posts about animals that are claimed to have been lost or found.

“If someone is looking for this sweet girl, my husband found her lying on the side road in Dublin,” a 1 May post on a Facebook group called Sell Your Stuff Dublin said, beside a photo of a brown and white dog lying on a steel table and covered with a blanket.

“She was hit by a car in a hit-and-run incident. We took her to the vet. She is not chipped. I know someone is looking for her. Please bump this post to help me find the owner.”

Posts on news sites and social media accounts indicate that almost identical posts featuring the same image were posted across the English-speaking world on the same date.

On 3 May, Belfast Live debunked an iteration of the post that claimed that the same dog was found at the side of the road in Co Down.

“Threat actors use a number of different tactics to try and get the attention of potential victims,” cybersecurity expert Sheehan told The Journal. 

These can include appealing to different parts of human nature — some can be emotive — ‘a missing child has been reported in your area, click here to find out more.’

“Others can offer potential financial gain — ‘click here to find out more about a unique investment opportunity before the Government closes the loophole.’

“As humans, we are still adapting to the incredible changes that technology has brought, and cyber criminals are exploiting this.”

Missing people

Photos of injured toddlers and pets are not the only ones that are stolen, and the impact can be wider than people falling victim to scams.

Another Facebook post from 13 August on a group called For Sale in Limerick urged people to help find a man in his thirties, along with an idyllic photo showing him next to his smiling wife and infant.

“36-year-old Brian Posch went missing yesterday morning here in Limerick,” the post said. “His truck was found with his baby girl inside but, unfortunately, there is still no sign of him.

“A silver alert has been issued for Keith, who is considered to be in extreme danger and in need of medical assistance. We are asking for the community’s help. Only 2 seconds to share.”

Despite the inconsistent naming of the missing person as both Brian and Keith, more than 4,400 people have shared the post at the time of writing.

The same post was also published on the same date in a Dublin Buy & Sell group, though posted by a different user and with the location changed to Dublin.

The man shown in the photos is Brian Posch, a truck driver from Pennsylvania.

When the appeals for people to look out for him around Limerick and Dublin were posted, he had already been dead for months.

Since his death, Posch’s name and photos have been repeatedly used in scam posts, often using the same wording as in the Irish groups, but with the location changed.

The National Missing Person’s Helpline, a charity that helps the families and close ones of those who go missing, explained how this can have a hugely detrimental impact on legitimate missing person cases. 

“The people behind this scam show little consideration for affected families and the trauma that they are going through,” a spokesperson for the charity told The Journal.

“Published official alerts are an extremely useful tool in the search for information on a missing person and false, misleading or inappropriate posts have the potential to disrupt this valuable resource.”

Meta has been made aware of the posts and say they are investigating. At the time of writing, most of these are still online. 

Meta’s policies are to “remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm” or “that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes.”

Meta also has a policy against “Fraud, Scams, and Deceptive Practices“, though using fake stories to generate reach does not appear to be forbidden.

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