Fake pictures of Osama’s death and conspiracy theories

Posted on | mei 5, 2011 | No Comments

And now, to the point: Soon after President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 1, gruesome pictures like this screen grab from a Pakistani news channel began surfacing that allegedly show Osama bin Laden dead.

Shortly thereafter, other images began appearing around the internet, primarily on Facebook, claiming that the pictures have been doctored. Many of the alleged bin Laden images contain commentary skeptical of his death. (Scroll down to see the images)

This despite the fact that the US government has not released any pictures or videos of bin Laden after the raid on his compound in Pakistan. (The only authoritative documentation from bin Laden’s death site is this video obtained by ABC News.)

The nature of these images show just how easy it is for someone to doctor images, attach conspiracy theories to them and have them go viral on the internet by piggybacking on a big news event. But it also shows that after 10 years of high-profile chase, people need some form of documentary evidence to “prove” that the world’s most notorious terror kingpin is really dead.

And then there’s this convenient explanation of how the image above was montaged: