JULIO CESAR AGUILAR / AFP
On the evening of October 31 in Dublin, thousands of residents gathered in the city center, awaiting a parade that never took place. Illustrative photo.
IRELAND – A bad joke for Halloween. On the evening of October 31, thousands of Dublin residents were trapped. They had gathered in the streets of the Irish capital to attend a parade, which ultimately never took place.
At issue: an ad on a website generated by artificial intelligence and based in Pakistan. “My Spirit Halloween”, the site in question, falsely announced that the “Macnas Halloween Parade” would take place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Dublin, on the evening of October 31. The ad quickly spread online and the interest led to high rankings on Google, making the misinformation even more accessible to the general public, says The Independent.
In the images, we can see hundreds of residents massing along O'Connell Street, one of the main avenues of the capital, waiting for the parade. But the situation then forced the Gardaí, the Irish national police, to broadcast a message asking people who were waiting on this artery of the city of “disperse safely”.
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A large-scale hoax
“We inform you that, contrary to information circulating on the Internet, no Halloween parade is planned in Dublin city center this evening or tonight”declared a police spokesperson, still according to the British tabloid. “Everyone is trying to have a fun and safe Halloween. Having a parade to go to sounded really good. I know a lot of people came. It’s really a shame”reacted Janic Boylan, municipal councilor for Sinn Fein, a party from the Irish nationalist movement.
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“The fact that a fake social media account can attract hundreds of people to the city center for a fake parade should be taken as a sign that there is an appetite in Dublin for a well-organized annual Halloween parade »wrote in a post on X Gary Gannon, social democratic MP. For Irish Halloween fans, next year may finally be the right one.
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