Thousands of people gathered in Dublin, Ireland on Thursday evening for a Halloween parade that would never happen. Videos and photos posted on social media showed large crowds gathering in central Dublin, but it appears they were all duped by what appears to have been an elaborate online hoax.
“People waiting for a Halloween parade,” one social media user posted on Thursday, with a photo of the crowds along Dublin’s O’Connell Street, a main street in the capital.
They noted that there were no police or event staff on site and that there was “no official announcement, people were waiting on the wrong side of the road”, concluding: “Someone has pulled a major #hoax #Prank.”
The non-event was advertised on the website myspirithalloween.com, which promoted multiple Halloween events around the world, including in US cities and in the UK, Mexico and Australia.
The website had advertised the fake parade in Dublin, claiming it was organized by real Irish performance group Macnas. The event was subsequently touted by social media users on TikTok and Facebook, according to commentary posted online by Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst at the think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who looks at the spread of disinformation online.
The website was likely created to generate advertising revenue and contained fake reviews, real photos from past Macnas Halloween events, fake social media pages on Facebook and AI-generated text, O’Connor said.
Some of the events advertised on the site were real. The page on the site detailing the alleged parade in Dublin was changed from Friday to reflect that it had been “cancelled”.
The “site claims to be based in Illinois, but all signs point to the person(s) behind it being based in Pakistan,” O’Connor said in a post on X.
In an attempt to disperse the crowds on Thursday evening, Irish police posted a statement online saying: “Contrary to information circulating online, there will be no Halloween parade in central Dublin this evening or tonight.”
“Anyone gathered on O’Connell Street in anticipation of such a parade is asked to disperse safely,” the Irish National Police said in a message on X.
The Irish state broadcaster RTÉ reported that the large crowds briefly caused disruption to the tram lines in Dublin.
