Someone altered the bathroom selfie (above right) of Veerender Jubbal to make him look like he was wearing a suicide vest. His iPad was crudely changed into a Quran. The image spread quickly over the weekend. “The image was even shared by one of the largest—though unofficial—pro-ISIS channels on Telegram, the app that the extremist group used to take credit for the attacks in Paris,” BuzzFeed reports. It was also shared by a few large European news organizations.
A natural human reaction after an event like the Paris attacks is to find out who to blame, which sometimes leads to innocent people being accused. But unlike when some people on Reddit falsely accused a man of the Boston marathon bombing, the smear on Jubbal was intentional. Jubbal blames activists involved in GamerGate, who have harassed him in the past. While the person who did the Photoshop hasn’t been revealed, there are clear clues to his or her biases in the altered image. A dildo has been Photoshopped into the background.