To generate user interaction, many advertisers and influencers slightly distort reality through their content on social networks. It is more than assumed in today’s society, increasingly dependent on digital tools. The problem arises when the distortion gets out of hand, as has happened to @hoyespaña.media. This TikTok account announced the supposed opening of a Chinese restaurant with a koi fish aquarium in Usera. After the publication went viral, Infoveritas revealed that the news was false.
The @hoyespaña.media news about the restaurant has more than 3,500,000 visits and 96,400 “likes”. In addition, 36,100 users have saved the publication. The video is particularly striking for its images of circular tables surrounded by an aquarium full of Chinese carp. Diners are seen interacting with the fish, giving them food and touching them.
Infoveritas discovered that the video has little (if anything) to do with Madrid’s Chinatown: the images were picked up from a post uploaded by the Chinese Embassy of El Salvador about a restaurant in Baoding to its Instagram account.
“To attract customers, this restaurant in Baoding has adopted the unique practice of letting carp swim around customers in a giant pond,” the Chinese Embassy explains in its post, released on March 27, 2024.