Train Selfie Hoax

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About

Train Selfie Hoax refers to a viral video showing an Indian man identified as "T. Siva" pointing a camera at himself while standing on a railroad in front of a train prior to dropping the phone as the train appears to hit him. The video was accused of being a hoax after a journalist discovered footage of the man being berated by friends for faking the video in late January 2018.

Origin

In late January 2018, a video in which a man is shown standing in front of an oncoming train and smiling before appearing to be struck by the moving transport began circulating online (shown below). The video was reportedly taken near the Borabanda railway station in Hyderabad, India.

Spread

On January 24th, 2018, Redditor koochiemcputie submitted the video to /r/videos,^[1] where it gained over 2,100 points (87% upvoted) and 580 comments within four days. That day, India's South Central Railway released a statement that Siva sustained a head injury after falling to the side of the track.^[3] Also on January 24th, the news site The Sun^[2] published an article about the video titled "Selfie Horror," which reported that the man identified as "Siva" had been rushed to the hospital after the incident. On January 25th, the Gazette Review^[5] reported that Siva had been fined 500 Indian Rupees.

Hoax Accusation

On January 25th, 2018, journalist Nellutla Kavitha tweeted a video of several men joking with Siva, claiming he and "his friends created MMTS train accident take video" (shown below).

This guy Shiva n his friends created MMTS train accident fake video, fooled ppl as accident took place, this guy works in a gym at Madapur as general instructor, got this info from my teammate who goes to this gym, now this guy is absconding pic.twitter.com/QebASR3FcS
— Nellutla Kavitha (@iamKavithaRao) January 25, 2018

That day, the ABN Telugu YouTube channel uploaded a news segment discussing a second video that had surfaced, in which the man is shown being "teased by his friends" after faking the train video (shown below).

On January 30th, the Indian internet news blog The Indian Idiot^[6] published an article which translated the men in Kavitha's video:

“Nothing happened to him. He is alright, eating well and drinking. There was a newspaper article on this which was not researched so it authenticated the fake video and fake consequences.”