Misleading: This video does not show China using a large sonic gun to harass Indian soldiers
By Li Fengjiaxin and Duan Hanzi
A video posted on Twitter claims to show China is using a large sonic gun near the China-India border to attack and harass Indian soldiers. The tweet says “the high power sound can cause nausea & vomits after hours of exposure.”
The video has over 290,000 views and has been retweeted more than 100 times since it was posted on Oct. 3, 2020. The same video was also posted on Youtube, and has gained more than 6,500 views.
The claim is misleading. The video has nothing to do with the China-India border conflict. It was originally posted in 2016, four years before the current dispute, and the super-sized megaphone in the video is not a sonic weapon.
Reverse image search led to an identical video posted on Youtube in 2016. The caption referred to the equipment in the video as “the largest air-raid siren in the world,” adding it was produced by Taizhou LionKing Signal Co., Ltd.
Annie lab found the Chinese official website of the LionKing company through the Chinese commercial search engine Tianyancha. The Defender Siren is included in the product list on the website.
According to the company website, the Defender Siren produces a loud sound to alert people for emergencies.
Conflicts between India and China erupted in June after a skirmish at Galwan valley, an area which lies in the disputed Himalayan region of Ladakh.
NewsMeter, an Indian news site, also debunked this claim in September.
Disclaimer: This is a student work. Although faculty members at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong have done everything possible to verify its accuracy, we cannot guarantee there are no mistakes. If you notice an error or have any questions, please email us at contact@annieasia.org.
