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Virginia State Police said this week that they are aware of videos posted on social media featuring missing children in the state. They said these videos are fake and the department is not investigating any reports of mass abductions in Virginia.
“When that information gets out into the public, as false as it may be, it blossoms, and other people latch on to it,” said John Bischoff, vice president of the Missing Children Division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Their center uses social media to get information out about missing children across the U.S.
When the fake videos were posted, he said the center, as well at the Virginia State Police, got a lot of people calling in.
“Social media can be an absolute double-edged sword,” he said. “We received a lot of phone calls asking about a mass abductor in the state of Virginia. We have no information to support that.”
He said it’s important that people are looking at the right place for information.
“Look to trusted resources. Look to us. Follow us on social media … follow the Virginia State Police or and even local police,” he said. “Certainly, they’re going to be posting the most accurate information to follow.”
Virginia State Police said there is an average of 98 children missing each week in the state, but there is not a mass abduction event as the social posts suggested.
“As we saw in the past week here, it was a catalyst for misinformation. A lot of calls went to Virginia State Police. A lot of calls came to our call center,” he said.
He said posts like that undermine the fact that there are missing children and they need help getting the facts out there to bring those children home.
“They’re not aware of any mass abductions,” he said. “They’re not investigating anything mass-related or anything like that. Here in the state of Virginia, if we were, we would absolutely sound the alarm for a huge public outcry, but that’s not the case. What we do have are missing children. Each and every day, we deal with missing child cases, and we need the public’s help in finding those missing children.”
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