White van panic in US also

It is not only in Sri Lanka that claims of white van abductions are being made. The CNN has reported that there is talk about it even in the United States, of course, for different reasons. Here are extracts of the report:

New York (CNN) - Terrifying rumours initially propelled by Facebook's algorithms have sparked fears that men driving white vans are kidnapping women all across the United States for sex trafficking and to sell their body parts. While there is no evidence to suggest this is happening, much less on a national, coordinated scale, a series of viral Facebook ( FB) posts created a domino effect that led to the mayor of a major American city issuing a warning based on the unsubstantiated claims.

The latest online-induced panic shows how viral Facebook posts can stoke paranoia and make people believe that spotting something as common as a white van, can be deemed suspicious and connected to a nationwide cabal.

"Don't park near a white van," Baltimore Mayor Bernard "Jack" Young said in a TV interview on Monday. " M a ke s u re you ke e p yo u r cellphone in case somebody tries to abduct you."

The mayor said he had not been told of the apparent threat by Baltimore Police but said it was "all over Facebook."

Matthew Jablow, a spokesperson for the Baltimore Police Department, told CNN Business on Tuesday that while the department is aware of posts on social media it had not received "any reports of actual incidents."

Indeed, while there is no hard evidence of any such phenomenon in Baltimore, unconfirmed reports of suspicious white vans in Baltimore and other cities across the US have been shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook in recent weeks and have been seen by potentially millions of Facebook users. At least one person who drives a white van has reported being harassed for it as a result of the rumours.

Baltimore City Councilman Kristerfer Burnett, co- chair of the Baltimore City Human Trafficking Collaborative, told CNN Business that he worried that the panic about white vans would distract from the wider issue of human trafficking.

"We need to make sure accurate information is out there especially because Baltimore is a hotbed of human trafficking in the country," Burnett added.

He said the rumours had spread mostly through Facebook, "which I think is sort of telling given the national conversation around Facebook's ability and inability to control the spread of inaccurate information on their platform."

In Georgia, police investigating reports of suspicious white vans have asked the public to call 911 rather than post on social media.