False video after the Graz attack: Social media and its lies!

False video after the Graz attack: Social media and its lies!

In a worrying development on social media, a video purportedly showing the attacker of a recent shooting spree in Graz shouting "Allahu Akbar" caused a stir on Tuesday. But like that Small newspaper reported, the video actually comes from an incident that happened in Vienna-Floridsdorf at the end of May.

This video, taken on May 30, 2025, shows two teenagers at a skate park, one of whom is wielding a weapon. According to witness reports, several shots were fired while calls for “Allahu Akbar” could be heard. The large-scale police operation triggered by this situation highlights the urgency and security risk that such incidents pose.

False identification and misinformation

The Vienna police have now made it clear that this video is in no way related to the devastating attack in Graz in which ten people lost their lives. The actual perpetrator from Graz is a 21-year-old Austrian who used to be a student at BORG Dreierschützengasse. The spread of misinformation is also exacerbated by the identification of a man in a picture as a potential perpetrator; This is the US comedian Sam Hyde, whose image has already been used several times for such misinformation.

In times of fake news and disinformation, dealing with such content remains a challenge. Loud bpb.de Although the spread of fake news is often discussed, reliable information is still crucial in the current media landscape. Confusion about what fake news actually is is widespread. Many users often do not know how to distinguish reliable from misleading information.

The role of social media

The spread of misleading content occurs not only verbally but also through social media, which provides easy access to misinformation. In this case, the video was posted by the pro-Kremlin platform “ura.ru” with the hashtag #Graz, which aroused false associations. The “Nexta” portal also distributed the video in connection with the Graz attack, but later took it offline again when the false connections were discovered. This makes it clear how important fact checks and raising public awareness are.

In connection with the incident, the police have called for people not to share images or videos on social media, but to upload them directly to an Interior Ministry platform. This shows how necessary it is to handle information responsibly.

The events in Vienna-Floridsdorf and the subsequent spread of misinformation underline the urgency with which we are all called upon to improve our media literacy. This is the only way to prevent such unfortunate misunderstandings and dangerous disinformation from continuing to endanger the quality and security of our information landscape in the future.