A Pakistani man living in Australia has spoken of his "deep trauma" and described his life turning into a "nightmare" after his photograph was falsely circulated on social media, identifying him as one of the perpetrators of the Bondi beach terror attack.
The Shock of False Accusation
Naveed Akram, a 30-year-old business owner from New South Wales, found himself at the centre of a damaging misinformation storm following the deadly shooting at Sydney's Bondi beach, which left 16 people dead. Police identified the two alleged shooters on Monday as father and son Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24.
As news spread online that one of the attackers shared his name, Akram's images were widely shared on platforms like X and Facebook, falsely labelling him as a culprit without any verification. He described his "shock and horror" upon discovering his photo was being shared by accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers and was trending on X.
"It was extremely disturbing for me," Akram said. "As soon as I saw that my photo was being shared as the shooter, I came home instantly as I knew it was very dangerous. I was so traumatised and I knew I needed to try and get the message out that this wasn't me."
The Spread of Dangerous Misinformation
Incorrect details, including Akram's educational background, were even published on mainstream media websites such as the Jerusalem Post and World Is One news. Many of the accounts sharing his image falsely were from India, where right-wing influencers seized on the alleged Pakistani origin of the shooter to push anti-Pakistan narratives, without fact-checking their target.
It is crucial to note that the alleged attacker, Naveed Akram, is an Australian citizen. His father migrated to Australia in the late 1990s and is not a citizen, a detail revealed by Australian authorities.
Despite the falsehoods, none of the Facebook or X posts wrongly showing Akram's image were given warning labels or community notes by the platforms' fact-checking systems to flag the misinformation.
Broader Pattern of False Claims
Akram was not the only victim of malicious false reporting in the attack's aftermath. One X post with over 8 million views incorrectly claimed the shooter was an IDF soldier, while another asserted he was a Lebanese man of Palestinian descent.
Furthermore, the true hero of the incident, 43-year-old father-of-two Ahmed al-Ahmed, who tackled a shooter and disarmed him, was also subject to false claims. Users on X falsely identified the hero as a 47-year-old IT worker with a British name, linking to a suspicious website registered in Iceland.
This misinformation was amplified by X's own AI chatbot, Grok, which repeated the false claim about the wrong man being the hero. An associate professor noted that the failure to apply a community note to Grok's false post for over 10 hours demonstrated how X's fact-checking system fails during major, divisive events.
Additional false claims circulated, including that Muslims had set off fireworks in celebration of the attack—which were actually part of a Christmas carols event—and that the alleged shooter's home address was falsely labelled as a mosque on Google Maps.
A Plea for Responsibility and Safety
Akram reported the misinformation to police but was merely advised to disable his social media accounts. Unable to get assistance from X, he made his own video to clarify his identity and plead for the dangerous posts to be removed.
"This shooting was such a terrible, terrible tragedy, I really have no words," said Akram. "So it's really shocked and disturbed me that people would put my life in danger with these fake posts."
He called on social media platforms to take responsibility, noting many fake posts remain online. "I'm still scared to go outside even to do the shopping," he admitted. "My life could still be at risk because of this. My only priority right now is clear my name and protect me and my wife."
