Duncan Hames

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Jo Swinson and her husband Duncan Hames were the subjects of a viral misleading story on Facebook

Misleading policy stories go viral online all the time. The Action is particularly hectic during an election campaign.

This is the story of how a fairy - tale with Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson and her husband Duncan Hames was One of The Most common policy stories in The First few days of 2019 to the fight, with a potential audience of More Than 1. 5 Million People.

BBC Trending investigation tracked down the man, which by an Italian in North Wales to a barman in London, which exaggerated the real facts and helped the story go viral via Some of Britain's biggest political pages and groups on Facebook.

Several versions of the story exist, with many different details. But the false claim, The Core is the same: the Ms Swinson man is personally benefits from resources of the European Union , and this is the main reason why you are against Leakage.

- where does it come from? The First trace we have of the story is a series of screenshots was to be found in a tweet from a on 30 September, which showed.

But the story really went viral a few hours later, when a tweet from an account called "Henry Viii " has been retweeted More Than 1,000 times.

Some elements of the tweet are correct. Duncan Hames , the MP from 2010-2015, works for the British branch of Transparency International .

The Berlin office of the non-governmental organization that a grant of 4m euros (£3. 4m) of the European Commission in 2018.

But the funding for the UK branch - again, The One that Mr Hames was working for the - is disconnected. There are smaller grants from the European Union : £21,000 will receive in 2016/17 and £2,000 in 2017/18.

The European Commission is providing funds for many aid organisations and NGOs, and grants, go to the General accounts - not Mr Hames own pocket.

As the story twisted has according to the viral tweet above, will be paid the grant to Transparency International , explains to anti-corruption projects, why Ms Swinson and Mr Hames "love the EU so much".

But both have a long history of support for the EU. It supports Remain, in the year 2016 EU referendum before Transparency International joined.

The Liberal Democrats declined to comment for this story.

Ms Swinson and Mr Hames are long-standing supporters of the European Union , BBC Trending spoke to "Henry Viii " via Twitter direct Message . The person behind the account claims to be an Italian man named Dino lives in North Wales .

The account mainly to share posts written in Italian and about Italian politics, but we were not able to independently verify his identity.

"I wanted to know why Jo is so pro-EU," he wrote. "I was told, always The Money trail to follow. "He says he posted the tweet after a look in the "Transparency International " financial accounts published online.

Two Days later, the story jumped from Twitter to a much larger Social Network . The Following post appeared on the Facebook Page of Michael Barton, a freelance writer based in London:

The Post adheres to the same set of facts, in the tweet of "Henry Viii ". Mr Barton told the BBC that he was not the original tweet and instead, The Post compiled after conducting its own research.

This post started, more and more people started talking about Ms Swinson man in Facebook groups and on Twitter. On the basis of the groups and pages, where the story was disseminated, it is clear that most of the impetus came from Brexiteers - Some of the supporters of the Conservatives or the Escape party, and the other, the left, Labour activists.

The online rumors was so strong that the UK branch of Transparency International , in early October.

", Transparency International UK (TI-UK) is independent and politically neutral and has to engage both, and objectively, politicians criticize, regardless of their political opinion or party affiliation," she said. "TI-UK has neither the membership in the European Union is in favour for or against the United Kingdom continues to be.

"TI-UK does not work on all the projects funded by the European Union . "

The story goes on to spreadBut that doesn't stop the press release, the story of the spread and morphing. It exploded in the mainstream, if it was, the together of. EU, a pro-British EU exit Facebook Page with nearly a million followers. This post 18,000 times and received thousands of likes and comments:

more traction in the next couple of days was divided still, as it was written, to the politically themed Facebook pages with large followings who claim that post news stories.

A "Unity News Network", the exit of pro-British EU activists put a post-largely analogous to the above examples. The Post linked to an article that hinted at "dark figures" and asked: "Mrs. SwinsonOliver-Down of Unity News Network told the BBC: "We did not mean anything, but merely asked the question so that the reader of your own opinion. "

Other pushed, the facts of history, past the Breaking Point .

Nye Bevan NewsOn 4. October, a Facebook Page and website with the name " Nye Bevan News, which describes itself as "pro-proletariat" and "anti-establishment", released his version of the story.

This Time , it is clearly false statements: that Mr Hames "heard", Transparency International and the organization of a "family company. "

the publisher of the Page is Ben Jenkins, a 34-year-old, originally from South Wales , who works in a bar in London.

Mr. Jenkins' Page often share positive contributions to Old Labour" figures like Tony Benn and Nye Bevan praise ". It is also often criticized as "New Labour" figures like Tony Blair and his former communications chief Alastair Campbell , who is now a supporter of the stay in the EU.

he BBC met the reporters, Mr Jenkins denied that he be misleading, but described the wording of his post about Swinson as "spin".

"all of us, Alastair Campbell , illegitimate children are," said Mr Jenkins said, referring to Campbell's guest performance as No 10 communications chief, and the frequent description of him as a "spin doctor".

"He taught us How To do this, and he can deal with the consequences. "

Mr Jenkins said his side has A Number of volunteer moderators. No money changes hands, he said, but his popular Page - it has More Than like 113,000 shares of your posts. to get

"traffic, I get the content," he said.

Peak popularityThe post reached a much larger audience in the pages and groups with names like the "British Voice", "the WTO-the UK's EU-exit Now" and "We Support Jeremy Corbyn ," according to the research, the misinformation expert Maarten Schenk of.

These groups came from across the political spectrum, including the municipalities, the support of the labour, the SNP, the Brexit Party , UKIP and the Conservatives.

Although it kept spreading on Facebook, The Post took a month to reach its peak. It was One of The Most popular of the politics posts on the Social Network on 4. November.

It has now been posted to at least 248 different pages and groups, in the vicinity of 50,000 interactions (shares, comments, and likes), and the story has been seen by a potential audience of over 1. 5 million, according to analysis by BBC Monitoring.

Getty image where appear the misleading story?

248Different Facebook groups and pages, where it

47,000+ interactions: Likes, shares, comments,

1 has been posted. 5m+the Possible target audience: followers of the pages, where the story appeared.

source: BBC Monitoring disinformation team, crowd tangle from an obscure tweet, this has entered misleading history, mainstream entertainment such as the United Kingdom gears up for the election on may 12. December.

When we wrote last week, us a quick E-Mail, saying: "It is widespread that Jo Swinson 's husband, the company has received More Than £4 million from the EU, why don't the BBC report this on the mainstream news?"

Not only SwinsonThe Swinson's story is an example of a misleading political history, viral goes. But it is not the only - or even The First in connection with the elections in 2019.

produces One of The Most viral electoral video of Joe. co. Great Britain, a left-wing website is aimed at Young Men .

"Monster Crash" is a joke video with a serious Message - it means that Boris Johnson and the Conservative Cabinet member Jacob Rees-benefit Mogg of engineering a financial crisis, caused by a no-deal Escape.

This video has 4m views on Facebook and Twitter, The video-or indirectly, on a story that circles the outlet went viral in the anti-British EU, again at the beginning of October. Again, there were several versions of the story, but at The Heart of all of them accusations were that the financial speculators, the help, to urge the Conservative Party to Britain's exit from a no-deal-UK EU.

As in the case of Swinson's history, Some of The Elements of the story are true - for example, Mr Rees-Mogg has a

twitter, facebook, liberal democrats, jo swinson, fake news, social media

Source of news: bbc.com