Facebook warriors turn guns on wrong man

The namesake of the man accused of grievously injuring police constable Simon Schembri in a harrowing hit-and-run, had a taste of lynching by social media when his Facebook profile was flooded by possibly harmful comments.

The police officer was run-over by 17-year-old Liam Debono, a Tarxien resident now accused of attempted murder.

But with five new Facebook profiles opened every second globally, the chances of mistaken identity in the world of social media – especially in tiny Malta – are only too easy.

Having recently changed his own Facebook profile name to ‘il-Lillu’, Facebook users searching for Liam Debono on the social media platform were faced with a list of profiles that did not belong to the young offender.

One of those profiles happened to be of 20-year-old Liam Debono, of Fgura.

In the span of three days, Debono, a student at MCAST, received 80 online friend requests. At first not bothering him, as the number of requests grew, Debono had to come to terms with the way people had jumped to the conclusion that he was responsible for the hit-and-run.

“People read the first two sentences of a newspaper report and suddenly start coming to conclusions about the case, without being properly informed,” Debono said, adding that his Facebook photos were circulating in various comment boxes on online newspapers, in a clear case of mistaken identity gone wild.

“Some people posted photos of me on social media groups, and they thought I was making fun of the incident, sort of rubbing it in,” he said, referring to a photo he uploaded the same day of the incident, with the status: ‘Hopefully better days on the way’.

He had only just come out of a major surgical operation.

“They misinterpreted that quote and thought it was referring to the aftermath of the accident,” Debono said.

The young man said he was confused and angered about the way he was being wrongly connected to the attempted murder, and that despite reporting the wrongful comments, he was unable to take control of the situation.

“I felt frustrated and out of control, trying to get the comments off the web, and then I started getting print screens from my peers of people wrongly mentioning my profile, even in closed groups like ‘The Salott’,” he said of the popular Facebook group.

Debono said that he was even contacted by his own college director, who was shocked at the news and thought he had been involved.

“Two of the people that added me on Facebook are frequent visitors at my uncle’s restaurant, where I work. Had these people seen the comments of those who were misinterpreting the situation, and had I not publicly clarified the situation, I’m sure we could have lost those customers.

“I cannot understand how people can react in such a hasty manner, and I want to appeal to Facebook users to pay attention and only post informed comments in situations like these. The wrong kind of conclusion about people in such situations could make matters worse for innocent parties.”

The case against the actual Liam Debono, the real person being tried for the hit-and-run of the police constable, continued in court yesterday, with a doctor and a number of police officers who were on the scene to help Schembri describing the harrowing injuries he suffered.