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Pakistan issues nuclear threat to Israel in Twitter fight over fake news story

The false story purported that Israel’s defense minister vowed to nuke the country if it sent any troops to Syria.

Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif. CREDIT: AP Photo/B.K. Bangash
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif. CREDIT: AP Photo/B.K. Bangash

The real-life consequences of fake news made their way into international relations over the weekend. Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaja Asif tweeted a brusque threat directed at Israel in response to a news report claiming the country would nuke if Pakistan if it sent ground troops to fight the Islamic State in Syria.

https://twitter.com/KhawajaMAsif/status/812370140507545600

Israel’s defense ministry fired back, saying the original story headlined “Israeli Defense Minister: If Pakistan send ground troops to Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack” was false and from a known fake news site, AWDnews.com.

The tense Twitter exchange is the latest example of the tangible effects from false news reports. In early December, a North Carolina man brandished and fired a rifle inside a Washington, D.C. pizza shop on the basis of a pervasive and widely debunked online rumor connecting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to a pedophile ring operating out of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria.

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The incident heightened public scrutiny of tech companies and social media sites to do more to inform readers of potentially dubious stories and publications. Facebook responded to the backlash by rolling out a fake news identifying tool powered by third-party fact-checking organizations. Developers have released two browser extensions to flag fake news, along with satire or heavily slanted sites.

Tech companies have also joined in, vowing to remove or block ads on sites that promote fabricated or sensationalized articles. AppNexus, which runs a major digital ad service, banned fringe-conservative site Breitbart from using its services after a “human audit” found the site promoted misleading articles with coded or overt language characterized as hate speech, Bloomberg reported. Google also pledged to remove ads from fake news sites but has failed to follow-through.