Datuk Seri Siti Nurhaliza Tarudin and her family are probably still on cloud nine thanks to the arrival of her first child, Siti Aafiyah Khalid. However, the joyous occasion was interrupted by some viral fake news.
Yesterday (Sunday, 8th April), an article accused the Malaysian pop star of “being sued” by the Government for “illegally making millions” in cryptocurrency trading. The 39-year-old singer has since released a statement in regards to the fraud report.
The fake news by Jack Borcott of “New Straits Times” was posted on Blogspot Central (New Straits Times has stated that they have no affiliation with the aforementioned “New Straits Times”. To make matters worst, the site even misspelled Siti Nurhaliza as “Sita Nurhaliza”.
The article claimed that “pop diva, businesswoman and serial investor” Sita Nurhaliza knew “the Bitcoin Code would become legal and made an investment in it with information she should not have had, and now has millions of dollars in profit for taking no risk”. The quote was apparently by Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali.
“I’m still under confinement but my good rest has been disrupted by something unpleasant – fake news. This popped up on a blog which listed an article purportedly about my ‘tough delivery’ but when I clicked on its link, a wholly fake one calling me ‘Sita Nurhaliza’ emerged. I vehemently deny the news. I have got nothing to do with it,” she wrote.
“Using my face and my name has invited confusion and raised questions by many parties,” the singer continued, before calling for the person responsible to remove her name and image from the article with immediate effect. “If this goes on, I will not hesitate to take appropriate legal action against the individual,” she added.
As at time of writing, the Instagram post has received over 43000 likes and 900 comments.
