Fake news about artist Hong Van's death spread on YouTube

On the evening of August 17, on the personal Facebook page of People's Artist Hong Van's manager, an article was posted reflecting on the fact that many websites, news sites, and YouTube channels were taking advantage of People's Artist Hong Van's image and name, spreading fake news with the aim of increasing interaction and views.

In which, YouTube channel T** *** 24H TV posted a video with the title "People's Artist Hong Van passed away suddenly at the age of 54".

False title of a news YouTube channel.

At the beginning of the video, the YouTube channel announced that People's Artist Hong Van had passed away due to a stroke. To date, the video with the false title is still appearing on the T** *** 24H TV news channel and has 78,000 views.

"Although the end of the video corrected the above information as fake, the way they titled it was false, just to attract attention. Using other people's lives to attract views like that is really unethical" - Mr. Ngo Van Dat - representative of People's Artist Hong Van said.

YouTube channel T** *** 24H TV joined YouTube in 2016, has 515 videos, attracted a total of more than 10 million views and regularly posts information with titles that contradict the content such as "Tran Thanh cried, reported to the police about the amount of damage after rumors were spread".

Mr. Dat has contacted the relevant parties directly to verify the incident and has also received an apology from the parties who reported the false news. Accordingly, in case the above information channels do not have a solution to fix or correct the situation, or continue to damage the artist's reputation, artist Hong Van will seek legal support.

The representative of People's Artist Hong Van also said that the situation of Vietnamese artists having their images and information used to create sensational headlines, defame them, and write false articles is not uncommon.

"Nowadays, fake news about artists on social networks is very difficult to control but has a great impact on the artists' reputation. Just one comment or a malicious title to attract views is enough to push an artist into trouble. Not every artist has the strength to sue each person" - Mr. Dat added.

This is not the first time artists have been caught up in trouble. At the end of May, the Vietnamese online community was abuzz with fake news about MC Tran Thanh partying and using stimulants with a group of friends, stemming from screenshots of text messages between two girls.

In May, artist Tran Thanh had to work with the person who spread fake news that he used stimulants.

Even though these two accounts have removed false posts related to him and clarified that the male artist did not use stimulants, artist Tran Thanh still resolved the matter to the end.

In July, People's Artist Hoang Dung had to speak up when his image was used indiscriminately, without his consent, but was attached to advertisements for many betting sites on Facebook.