14 DAY TRIAL // Who knew that being a Star Wars fan could get someone into so much trouble? An Australian man who was apparently snapping a selfie of himself in front of some Star Wars merchandise became the cause of a Facebook firestorm for no apparent reason.
The man, who is apparently a great fan of the movie franchise, spotted some merch in the children’s section and could not help but take a few selfies for posterity’s sake.
However, an overly cautious mother took notice of his actions and mistakenly concluded that the man was in fact taking pictures of her offspring, who just happened to be nearby.
At first, she alerted the guardian from the shopping center, but since she had not obtained the response she was going for, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
The mother appealed to social media for help
She quickly took a photo of the man in question and posted it on Facebook for the whole world to shame the creep who had allegedly come in the children’s area for all the wrong reasons.
As expected, people hastened to express their indignation with the man’s actions and they started sharing the photo to make others aware of the pedophile who was running free.
Soon enough, the man found out about the misunderstanding and went to the police straight away to clear things out. With some help from Knox Leader, a media publication, the people who had begun a riot on social media were made aware of the truth behind the problematic selfie.
But even after everything was sorted out, and the woman who had started all the madness on Facebook apologized to the man whose reputation she had put at risk, the story was far from reaching an end. Some angry Facebookers started sending death threats to the exceedingly vigilant mother, jumping to the defense of the Star Wars enthusiast.
She says that she has now learnt her lesson regarding the power that social media can have and she promised to let the police handle things if such a thing ever happens again. She will probably be more careful before jumping to conclusions, too.