Last week, social media was rife with viral posts and news reports on British pop sensation Dua Lipa performing at the closing ceremony of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 at Ahmadabad on November 19, 2023.
Soon enough, Lipa's fans in India dishearteningly found out that the reports were, after all, untrue. Her name did not feature in the list of performers for the closing ceremony that was released by the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Saturday.
However, this begs the question - how did this rumour take shape, and how did it make it to our news outlets?
An Anatomy Of Fake News
Skimming through the myriad tweets and memes about Lipa's alleged performance that had filled the internet almost instantly, we found two tweets by verified news channels on this matter.
One was by India Today, and another by Zee News English, both tweeting it out on November 15, 2023, and confirming the rumours as true.
News of Lipa's performance at the World Cup Closing Ceremony was now viral, with verified and unverified accounts on Twitter posting in frenzy to spread the good word.
Due Diligence... Or Not
In it's viral tweet, India Today confirms Lipa's performance at the World Cup with much surety. However, once you open the article linked to the tweet, the headline already appears to be less sure - punctuated with a question mark.
India Today's tweet appears even more misleading once you move to the article's highlights.
It clarifies that the source of the news of Lipa's performance is actually a rumour on the internet, which was sparked after an #AskDuaLipa interactive session between a few cricket players and the musician.
The article also mentions that "several reports have been doing the rounds", but we found India Today's report to be the first one to grace the internet, thereby confirming a rumour as true.
Zee News English also reported these rumours as news, with similar vigour, clarifying that Lipa will be "dancing and singing on World Cup final day".
"Popular singer Dupa Lipa is set to perform in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 opening ceremony," reads the article's lead, but soon cites a tweet by Star Sports on the #AskDuaLipa session as the source of this news.
A closer look at Star Sport's tweet reveals that the entire story on Lipa's performance is a sham.
It Was A Hypothetical Question
The tweet by Star Sports mentions that Lipa has spoken 'about the song she would perform at the World Cup closing ceremony', but stops short of making a formal announcement on Lipa's inclusion at the closing ceremony.
Finally, the entire mystery about Lipa's performance at the closing ceremony is solved once you watch the 147-second-long video shared with the tweet.
The #AskDuaLipa session was streamed by Star Sports on November 15, where the pop star was seen interacting with cricket players Shubham Gill, KL Rahul and Kane Williamson. During the interaction, Shubham Gill asks Lipa what songs she would choose, if she were to perform at the opening and closing ceremonies at the ongoing Cricket World Cup.
BOOM heard the interview multiple times, and it became clear that Gill's question was based on a hypothetical scenario of Lipa performing at the opening and closing ceremonies - and the point of the question was simply to ask her which songs of her's she'd choose to perform.