With the growing use of social media platforms in India, online trolling, especially in the context of fandoms, has seen a significant rise. An example of this is the targeted trolling of fans of the globally renowned Korean music outfit BTS. These troll… Read on blog or Reader Alt News Read on blog or Reader News 24 misuses influencer's photo in baseless story promoting racial stereotypes By Abhishek Kumar on 8th April 2025 With the growing use of social media platforms in India, online trolling, especially in the context of fandoms, has seen a significant rise. An example of this is the targeted trolling of fans of the globally renowned Korean music outfit BTS. These trolls often resort to making derogatory comments that not only demean BTS fans but also promote stereotypes about Nepalese people by making racist statements. The actions of these trolls highlight a disturbing pattern on social media, where people often use fake identities to express prejudiced views in the name of humour and satire without any accountability. What is even more disturbing is that the mainstream media encourages this trolling by posting such claims as real news without any verification. In one such report, News24 used a picture of a girl to claim that an Indian girl met a boy on social media thinking he was Korean and ran away from home to marry him, but he actually turned out to be a Nepalese watchman. (Archived link) This graphic making this claim has been circulating social media for many years along with a picture of a girl. Many social media users and pages have been sharing it for years as satire. The Facebook post provided below is from February 2022. Fact Check We performed a keyword search to investigate this viral claim and we could not find any information related to this matter on the internet. We then performed a reverse image search of the viral image on lenso.ai, a face search engine tool. Through this, we came to know that the photo was of a social media influencer named Madhulika Singh. We noticed that many users had commented on Madhulika Singh's recent Instagram posts related to the Korean-Nepalese claim. Madhulika shared a video speaking on the matter in her Instagram story and said, "There is a meme going viral on social media which is about me so I need to address it very soon, I will post a video about it today or tomorrow. My entire Instagram is full of such messages." https://player.vimeo.com/video/1071758711?badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479 When Alt News reached out to Singh regarding the matter, she stated, "This news is false and has been circulating on the internet for many years, in which my photo is being misused. I have also reported such posts many times on social media platforms." To sum up, News 24 posted a fake story that has been circulating online as satire for many years without verifying it. The photo of a social media influencer has also been misused here.

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