Online disinformation frustrated the search for Amber Alert kids Jeffrey and Emma
Misinformation and lies spread online frustrated the large-scale search for the missing Groningen children, Emma (8) and Jeffrey (10), in May. Among other things, a Facebook profile appeared under the name of Klaas Bijl, claiming that he was with the children in Belgium. And a Beerta local told a news channel that they had spoken to Bijl after the disappearance and that the children were fine, the Telegraaf reports.
The police had to check every one of these false leads, slowing down the search. It also caused unnecessary suffering for the children’s loved ones. The police issued an Amber Alert for the children one day after they disappeared with their father, Bijl, on May 17. After a three-day search, Jeffrey and Emma were found dead in the car with their father, submerged in a lake in Winschoten.
“People do this because they really want attention, want to have power, or because they want to thwart the authorities, in this case the police,” Rolf Zwaan, a professor of cognitive psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, told the Telegraaf. “One spreads it because they think that what they feel or think is true. And then there are people who deliberately spread disinformation.”
This behavior is not only frustrating to the police but also unkind to the loved ones. “It gives false hope to those involved and distracts attention from real leads,” said Izanne de Wit of the police’s National Expertise Center for Missing Persons (LOEP).
The scale of the disinformation in this case was striking, De Wit said. But it is something that happens often that people pretend to be a missing person, or scammers try to extort desperate loved ones. “It not only affects the investigation, but especially the families. They are in a situation of panic, grief, and hope. And that is precisely when they are extra vulnerable. Deception at that moment is cruel.”
