@Varneyco He sounds more concrete in his resolve than our own "petulant" president. Lol. - docteb (@docteb19) November 18, 2015

This is the danger of social media! I took Putin's quote from a post on Facebook & it turned out to be false. I apologize. - Remi Maalouf (@RemiMaalouf) November 18, 2015

Russian President Vladimir Putin has the image of a tough guy who often displays his machismo by going shirtless, making strong public remarks and often taking a hardline stance. So when a statement on terrorists "To forgive them is up to God, but to send them to him is up to me" was attributed to him, many on the social media believed it and quickly lapped it up.That statement was posted on Twitter by Russia Today anchor Remi Maalouf in the wake of Paris attacks in which more than 120 people were killed. That post registered with the critics of Barack Obama, who took on the US president for adopting a more measured approach to the tragedy.But it later turned out that Putin did not actually make these remarks.Ms Maalouf too apologised, posting a follow up tweet:This is not the first time that something like this has been forwarded on the social media without being checked if it is true or a just silly hoax.A few days back, a forward on alleged case of a HIV-positive worker contaminating Frooti products with his blood picked up pace. Without checking facts, people began forwarding the information. Similarly, a post showing contrast between a soldier eating lunch with a dirty water next to him and mineral water bottle next to a minister at a meeting was forwarded by a lot of people. The post branded it as the poor state of an Armyman at the border; it later turned out to be a Pakistani soldier. Posts like these go viral very fast because they touch an emotional chord.The most famous photo among these is that of soldiers forming a human bridge for flood victims to cross over. The post claimed it is from the Uttarakhand floods of 2013, in reality those were Chinese soldiers assisting their people after an earthquake in 2008.