France’s Interior Ministry wrote a press release informing the public that internet access would be restricted at night in certain neighbourhoods from 3 July.
The press release is fake. The Interior Ministry confirmed that the document is not genuine and that no such decision has been made.
A press release appearing to be from the French government, claiming that the internet is being restricted in certain neighbourhoods across France, is being shared online. But the press release is fake.
The posts share an image of what looks like a press release written in French from the Interior Ministry. The Interior Ministry is comparable to the Home Office in the UK and is the department of the French government that deals with emergency and crisis situations.
The fake press release, which is dated 2 July, says internet access will be restricted at night in certain neighbourhoods from 3 July. It says these “exceptional measures” are in order to prevent online platforms and social media being used to coordinate illegal activities and incite violence.
This comes as riots have been taking place across France following the fatal shooting by a police officer of teenager Nahel M in a Paris suburb on 27 June.
The image has been shared widely on Twitter and also appears on Facebook.
But the Interior Ministry has confirmed that the document is fake. An official Twitter account for the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, written in English, also warned about the fake document and said “no such decision has been taken”.
There is no trace of the press release on the Interior Ministry’s website. It does not appear that the department published any press release on 2 July.
The latest press releases published by the Interior Ministry were on 30 July and 5 July. The press release published on 30 June discusses moderating social media to tackle online hate and calls to violence, but there is no suggestion that internet access will be restricted. The press release on the 5 July is about the Tour de France.
While the fake press release is convincing, there are a few clues that suggest it’s not genuine. When compared with several of the most recent press releases from the same department, the text in the fake document is left-aligned, rather than each line being the same length and, as fact checkers at Snopes have pointed out, the date in the fake release is written numerically rather than using words.
The riots in France have become the subject of significant online misinformation in recent days. Full Fact has already written about a number of false posts such as those claiming zoo animals were released onto the streets of Paris, a fake Guardian opinion piece in support of looting and other content from different dates and locations being mislabelled as recent events.
False claims like these can spread quickly online, give an inaccurate impression of current events and create uncertainty about information that comes from official sources.
Image courtesy of Krzysztof Golik
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the Interior Ministry confirmed that the document is not genuine.
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