Clowns Strike Fear in France

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The media in France would have you believe there is a craze causing fear across the nation – youths dressed as clowns are terrorising unsuspecting members of the public. The police have pointed the finger at social media, both as the cause, and for spreading fear of the clowns. The numbers of people who have been apprehended by police are small, but the chatter online is substantial. We track the growing interest in prank videos involving clowns, and the subsequent online groups calling for the clowns to go away. In the fight against Islamic State, why has the ‘Angel of Kobane’ gone global? The image of a female Kurdish fighter in the northern Syrian town of Kobane, who apparently killed over 100 men from Islamic state, has been shared thousands of times around the world. In this week’s BBC Trending we unravel the myth of the woman in the image and find out why narratives of bravery against IS are amplified online by people from India, America and the United Kingdom. (Photo: Clown masks displayed at a costume store. Credit: Tim Boyle/Getty Images)