Facebook user trolls the world with his 'eerily accurate 2016 predictions'

AsiaOne
June 16, 2016

A Facebook post that appears to predict events such as the deaths of Prince and Muhammad Ali, and the Orlando shooting has spread across social media like wildfire. 

In the post, dated Dec 26, 2015, Facebook user Pablo Reyes makes a host of startlingly accurate predictions for the year ahead and even boasts that "you will remember my name" when the events come to pass. 

His post has garnered more than 151,000 reactions and over 216,000 shares at present. 

However, many people did not realise that Reyes had simply edited an old post and updated it with current events. 

Some were amazed at Reyes' apparent prophetic abilities, while others saw through the hoax. 

After his post went viral, Reyes himself commented, saying it was a hoax, and that it was meant to be shared by people who were easily fooled. 

"It's a hoax. A troll.. The point was for it to be shared by idiots that believe everything they see online. I'm not surprised by how many times it was shared, not my first hoax," posted Reyes. 

In an interview with BuzzFeed, Reyes said it bothered him that people on Facebook believe everything that they read. 

"I feel like people - I don't want to call people dumb - but I think it's up to the people to kind of make the decisions about what they hear and what they're being told," Reyes told BuzzFeed, which posted step by step instructions, explaining how Reyes had backdated his post to make him seem like a modern-day soothsayer. 

Reyes is apparently no novice at creating hoaxes that go viral. 

According to BuzzFeed, he once worked for Huzlers, a popular fake news site. 

Huzlers describes itself as "the most notorious fauxtire entertainment website in the world". 

The next time you come across a story online that seems too incredible to be true, you might want to think twice before clicking the "share" button. 

xiuhuil@sph.com.sg

AsiaOne