The Tory party seem to be in complete panic mode over this story.

Coming just days before the election, the news about a 4-year-old boy having to spend hours on a hospital floor because of the lack of beds …

… is really in danger of damaging Boris Johnson’s election chances:

Which is probably why thousands of fake news bots are at this very moment being used to spread disinformation to discredit the story across social media.

The bots are spreading fake news that the picture of a sick boy on the floor of a hospital in Leeds was staged by his mother. We know this is fake news because management at the hospital have confirmed the original story that the boy had to spend almost 4 hours without a bed and have even apologised to the family.

But the bots are successfully targeting influencers and local groups across the UK mainly on Twitter and Facebook with identical fake news tweets on Twitter and Facebook posts:

The bots are posting the exact same words on thousands of accounts across social media:

Even some so-called mainstream press ‘journalists’ – such as @allisonpearson at the Telegraph – have already fallen for the fake news.

Not all that surprising – Allison is clearly not very bright. She also fell hook line and sinker for the infamous fake news story about the little girl and the Muslim foster parents:

How the press lied about the little girl staying with Muslim foster parents

The only way to combat this fake news from the Tory Party is to share the debunking of it, before too many people start believing it.

So please share. Thank you.

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More detailed information about the bots from @marcowenjones on Twitter here.

And while we’re at it, many journalists reported that a Labour activist had punched Matt Hancock’s aide at the same Leeds hospital. This was not true: also fake news put out by the Tories:

The Punch That Never Was