Amazon fires: how sports celebrities are spreading disinformation

Many high-profile figures seeking to denounce the fires in the Amazon — from football stars Dani Alves and Cristiano Ronaldo to Novak Djokovic of tennis — have unwittingly ended up misleading millions on social media, either sharing photographs of the region that are years old or images taken in other parts of the world.

Official figures show nearly 73,000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of the year, the highest number for any year since 2013. Most were in the Amazon.

F1 driver Lewis Hamilton and Brazil soccer captain Dani Alves posted one of the most widely shared misleading images — the picture taken by photographer McIntyre before 2003.

Captain Dani Alves posted the same picture from 2003 on his Instagram.

Meanwhile tennis star Novak Djokovic shared the 1989 photo posted by Smith.

Portuguese soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo sounded the alarm on Instagram, alerting his 180 million followers that "the Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20% of the world´s oxygen and its been burning for the past 3 weeks." But the photo accompanying his message was taken on March 29, 2013 by Lauro Alves, from the Brazilian agency RBS, in the non-Amazonian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Barca striker Luis Suarez also posted an old photo dating back to 2015 and shot by journalist Nacho Doce.

Celebrities