#Factcheck-Viral Image of Men Riding an Elephant Next to a Tiger in Bihar is Misleading
Executive Summary:
A post on X (formerly Twitter) featuring an image that has been widely shared with misleading captions, claiming to show men riding an elephant next to a tiger in Bihar, India. This post has sparked both fascination and skepticism on social media. However, our investigation has revealed that the image is misleading. It is not a recent photograph; rather, it is a photo of an incident from 2011. Always verify claims before sharing.
Claims:
An image purporting to depict men riding an elephant next to a tiger in Bihar has gone viral, implying that this astonishing event truly took place.
Fact Check:
After investigation of the viral image using Reverse Image Search shows that it comes from an older video. The footage shows a tiger that was shot after it became a man-eater by forest guard. The tiger killed six people and caused panic in local villages in the Ramnagar division of Uttarakhand in January, 2011.
Before sharing viral posts, take a brief moment to verify the facts. Misinformation spreads quickly and it’s far better to rely on trusted fact-checking sources.
Conclusion:
The claim that men rode an elephant alongside a tiger in Bihar is false. The photo presented as recent actually originates from the past and does not depict a current event. Social media users should exercise caution and verify sensational claims before sharing them.
- Claim: The video shows people casually interacting with a tiger in Bihar
- Claimed On:Instagram and X (Formerly Known As Twitter)
- Fact Check: False and Misleading
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Executive Summary
A video is being widely shared on social media showing a flood-affected area. In the video, several houses appear to be almost completely submerged in water, with only their triangular rooftops visible above the surface. Several people can be seen sitting on these rooftops, while ducks and other animals appear to be floating in the water. The video is being shared with the claim that it shows the real situation during the recent floods in Assam. CyberPeace Research Wing’s research found the claim to be misleading. The research revealed that the viral video is not from any real flood incident but was created using Artificial Intelligence (AI). Although the flood situation in Assam is real and several parts of the state have been affected, the viral video has no connection with those events. The AI-generated video is being falsely shared as an actual visual from the Assam floods.
Claim
A user on Instagram shared the viral video on July 27, 2026, claiming that Assam continues to face severe flooding, with more than seven lakh people affected. The post link, archive link and screenshot are provided below.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbSVmAApQf6/
FactCheck
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we extracted several key frames from the video and conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens. The search did not reveal any credible news report, official source, or reliable information confirming that the video showed real flood visuals from Assam. During the research, we found a report published by Aaj Tak on July 27, 2026. According to the report, the flood situation in Assam remained severe, with several deaths reported and more than 7.05 lakh people affected across nine districts of the state. The report link and screenshot are provided below.
As the video appeared suspicious, we analysed it using the AI detection tool HIVE Moderation. The tool’s analysis indicated a 98.8 percent probability that the video was AI-generated, suggesting that it was not a real recording.
Further research was carried out using another AI detection tool, DetectVideo.AI, which found a 77 percent likelihood of the video being AI-generated.
For additional verification, we extracted key frames from the viral video and analysed them using another AI detection tool, AI or Not. The tool’s assessment indicated a 96 percent probability that the visuals were AI-generated.
Conclusion
The research established that the viral video is not from a real flood incident but was created using AI. While flooding in Assam is a real situation, this AI-generated video is unrelated to the actual floods and is being circulated on social media with a misleading claim.
Introduction
For more than 10 years, WhatsApp has been designed around one seemingly trivial but impactful idea: your phone number is your digital identity. This concept offered simplicity in terms of contact discovery and onboard- ing but inevitably exposed users to fraud, spam and the everyday necessity of sharing personal phone numbers with complete strangers in group chats and conversations. On June 29th Meta finally revealed a major move: you’ll now be able to choose and reservate a WhatsApp username and communicate without sharing your phone number.
This shift to a username based identity marks the company catching up to platforms like Telegram and Signal, which have utilized this functionality for years.
However, while presented as a push towards greater privacy for the millions using its platform, this new change has already created some alarm around impersonation, cybersquatting, and identity theft. The issues became amplified when, according to reports, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology advised WhatsApp to halt the implementation of the new features while it clarifies details, shifting a mundane app update into a high-stakes discussion on digital privacy, platform responsibility, and government regulation.
How does the mechanism work?
“WhatsApp’s username is an added pseudonym layer on its current phone number architecture, not a replacement,” Meta said in a statement on Thursday, as reported by TechCrunch. A WhatsApp username is a three to 35-character name containing lower case letters, numbers, periods and underscores that must contain at least one letter and “should not look like a website address.” The feature will allow you to “reserve a unique identifier that you can share as an alternative to your phone number in WhatsApp Settings - Accounts - Username.”
It said the usernames will work in parallel with a username key which can serve as a passphrase to initiate conversation “with a recipient before sending a message for the first time.”
“The change - which will have some additional, protective measures like reserving usernames for people of public interest or those that would cause impersonation, and rate limits on claiming names - can help maintain phone number protection, while offering people more choices,” Meta said. WhatsApp said usernames will replace phone numbers as the primary way to initiate new chats, but will not be publicly searchable: “Anyone you message would need your exact username, and would still need you to respond.”
The Genuine Privacy Case
The upside is real. Phone numbers double as keys to two-factor authentication, banking apps and SIM-swap fraud, so handing one to a new acquaintance, a group chat of strangers or a customer-support bot has always carried quiet risk. Numbers harvested from public groups already fuel spam and scam campaigns, and a username-first model narrows that exposure considerably.
For journalists, small business owners and anyone who fields messages from people they've never met, decoupling identity from a number that also unlocks their bank account is a meaningful, overdue shift – and one that WhatsApp's closest competitors adopted years ago without major incident.
The Scammer's Paradise Scenario
The trouble lies in what a username removes. A phone number was never just an identifier; it was also a rough verification signal and, for law enforcement, a traceable data point. Security reporters testing the reservation system found that lookalike handles mimicking prominent Indian politicians, film stars and the Reserve Bank of India remained available to claim. Crypto executive Changpeng Zhao's own failed bid to capture his desired handle highlighted the first-come, first-served danger of the rollout and led researchers to advise people to manually activate the optional username key that Meta leaves disabled by default.
The Mozilla Foundation was unvarnished about the tradeoff, noting that impersonation from fake accounts and scams are an “inevitable consequence” of a design that abandons the “implicit signal of authenticity” that comes from owning a phone number.
Indian entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo called the rollout a potential “disaster” if robust enforcement against fraud isn’t immediately applied because scammers could register handles a few characters removed from a popular brand or public figure to launch investment and payment schemes, a concern mirrored by cyber security researchers who observed that many users neglect to check verification badges before trusting an account.
India's Regulatory Scrutiny of WhatsApp's Username Feature
So far the strongest reaction comes from New Delhi. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued an official notice to Meta's compliance office that it should “temporarily suspend the feature” in the country pending further consultations and “provided an explanation in three days”. The cited concerns involve “digital arrest” fraud, a rapid boom category that involves crooks impersonating investigators like those with India's CBI, judges or customs agents to extort victims, in addition to standard concerns around phishing and bank or government impersonation.
A subtler concern, for India’s government anyway, is “traceability.”
At present, say officials, an Indian mobile number is a launching pad to determine whether a given suspect is a domestic or international actor, while a username and foreign SIM would leave authorities nowhere to begin. The Department of Telecommunications independently voiced concerns over how the change intersects with its SIM-binding regulations and over WhatsApp's lag time for such requests. The MeitY notice, the legal basis for which, incidentally, is in contention with some digital rights groups, specifically invokes Section 79 of the IT Act and various IT Rules from 2021 and provisions on identity theft and impersonation that target individual criminals rather than the tech tools. Not everyone, however, shares MeitY’s reading of the legal ground: the Internet Freedom Foundation says that Section 79 “deal with liability of intermediary” and “does not confer on the government power to license the features of a product,” while arguing the relevant criminal statutes were designed to criminalize impersonators, not tech platforms whose services are misused, echoing concerns that killed a similar government advisement about AI models last spring.
In the meantime, Meta says usernames are unavailable in the country for now and the multilayered safeguards it designed were always intended for exactly this level of risk.
Conclusion
WhatsApp's username feature is neither a total privacy upgrade nor a major security problem; instead, it reallocates risk, reducing phone number exposure while adding a risk of identity spoofing and misuse. Whether it pays off will hinge on the strength of Meta's crackdown on fraudulent usernames, the uptake of extra security features like the username key and whether the company can adequately satisfy regulatory concerns about traceability and user safety. Until all those questions are fully settled, users may want to use the feature tentatively, secure a desired username, enable any other protections and be watchful about new contacts.
References
- https://blog.whatsapp.com/its-time-to-reserve-your-whatsapp-username
- https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/whatsapp-usernames-why-indias-top-creators-fear-scams-impersonation-and-identity-theft-540359-2026-07-02
- https://www.outlookindia.com/national/outlook-explains-why-is-the-indian-government-worried-about-whatsapp-usernames
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/29/whatsapp-now-lets-you-reserve-usernames/
- https://bestmediainfo.com/mediainfo/mediainfo-digital/whatsapp-says-username-feature-not-live-yet-after-meity-asks-meta-to-pause-rollout-12124813
Executive Summary
A video of Delhi government cabinet minister Kapil Mishra is being shared on social media. In the clip, he can be heard saying that from the next day, only 50 percent attendance will be allowed in offices, while the remaining 50 percent employees will work from home. He also states that all institutions must comply with this. Users are sharing the video as a recent development. However, a study by the CyberPeace found the viral claim to be misleading. Our research revealed that the video is not recent but dates back to December 2025.
Claim:
An Instagram user shared the viral video on March 24, 2026. The link to the post is given below.
Fact Check:
To verify the claim, we conducted a keyword search on Google. During this process, we found a report published on December 17, 2025, on NDTV Hindi. According to the report, the Delhi government had made 50 percent work-from-home mandatory in government offices due to severe air pollution. Additional restrictions were also imposed under GRAP Stage IV.
Further, we found the original video on the official social media handle of BJP Delhi. In this video, Kapil Mishra can be heard stating that 50 percent work-from-home has been made mandatory in all government and private offices in Delhi, while health and other essential services have been exempted from this arrangement.
Conclusion:
Our research found that the viral video is not recent. It is from December 2025 and is being shared with a misleading claim.
