Hoax posts about dog bitten by rattlesnake shared widely online

Hoax posts claiming that a rattlesnake has bitten and seriously injured a dog have been shared hundreds of times in Facebook groups around the UK. 

Full Fact has seen examples of the posts in “buy and sell” groups in Dudley (West Midlands), Carluke (Lanarkshire), Alfreton (Derbyshire) and Great Yarmouth (Norfolk).

The posts all use near-identical language, which says: “Alarm ALERT 

“Diamond Rattlesnake found in [location] bitten one of my pups today and left it fighting for it’s life .Please be watchful of your surroundings, toilets, openings, potted plants etc. Stay safe everyone

“SPREAD THE WORD AND SAVE LIFE!! [sic]”

But this isn’t a real alert. Aside from the obvious fact that the same person cannot have had their dog injured by the same snake under the same circumstances in different places all over the country, the pictures used have been circulating online for a number of years.

We have written about one of the pictures before, in a very similar hoax post which claimed a “Deadly Eastern Diamond Rattlesnake” had been found and warned people to be careful about their surroundings, but did not include the details about the injured dog. 

As we wrote at the time, a reverse image search revealed that the picture of the snake curled up by the side of the road is at least two years old and appears to have been taken in a town in Texas. We have not been able to verify if the snake pictured is in fact an Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, but this type of snake is not native to the UK. 

We have not been able to locate the original version of the second picture, which shows a snake curled up in a plant pot, but it has been circulating online since at least June 2022 and posts using it have previously been called out as a hoax in the US.  

Thirdly, as we have already mentioned, the post follows a very similar format to other hoaxes we have checked online before—including a post about a Western diamondback rattlesnake found in a toilet in the UK. 

The comments on all the posts have also been turned off, which is a common sign that posts like these are hoaxes as people who are genuinely sharing alerts are very unlikely to prevent the post from being commented on in a way that makes it easier to share (for example, social media users tagging others in comments). 

We have written many times before about other hoax posts, such as reports of missing children, found dogs or missing elderly relatives. We have seen instances in which these sorts of posts are edited later to offer housing, links to surveys or other freebies.

Hoaxes like these risk overwhelming social media groups with false information, which can then damage people’s trust in local community news. As a result, genuine posts may be ignored or dismissed as false. 

We have written to Meta expressing these concerns and asking the company to take stronger action in response to this problem.