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A shocked mother discovered a photo of her family in a Facebook video for a face mask that claimed most of the family members pictured had died of COVID-19.
The image, a professional photo of the Ancich family taken for a holiday card eight years ago, reportedly appeared in a video advertising a face mask that was placed on the social network.
Mom Sara Ancich told CBS that she was inundated with Facebook messages from concerned family members and friends after the video appeared. The video claimed that the family became victims of the coronavirus pandemic after attending a church service. It said that all but the youngest son had died of COVID-19, according to CBS.
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The video describes a teenager's survival as a result of the face mask. The teen is falsely identified as a member of the Ancich family, CBS reports.
The photo of the Ancich family. (Chard Photo)
Facebook told Fox News that it has removed the video. "Our policies prohibit content that attempt to sell masks as a means of exploiting the crisis for financial gain," a Facebook spokeswoman told Fox News, via email. "So we’ve already removed this video and have taken steps to keep people from sharing it.” Facebook explained that it did not run as an ad on the social network (meaning that someone paid for it to be distributed), but was posted as a video.
When the social network removed the video, it ensured that other shares that are visually similar to that video are detected and automatically prevented from being uploaded.
AFP Fact Check reports that the video, along with another version advertising the face mask, racked up over 1 million views on Facebook. “The misleading ads, which play heavily on fears with dramatic music in the background, have been viewed more than 1.1 million times on Facebook,” it writes.
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CBS reports that while Sara Ancich said that the image was posted to social media years ago, it also showed up on several Pinterest boards following a reverse Google image search.
A woman holds her mobile phone in front of a computer screen with facebook logo for illustration purposes during Coronavirus pandemic, Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski on April 14, 2020. (Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The videos advertised the same product linked to two different websites, which are both now unavailable, according to AFP Fact Check.
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As of Thursday afternoon, more than 2 million coronavirus cases have been diagnosed worldwide, at least 639,733 of which are in the U.S. The disease has accounted for at least 139,419 deaths around the world, including at least 30,985 people in the U.S.
Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers.
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