Broadly, a women's interest website owned by the Vice media group, has amended an article it published earlier this month by an author who claims her mother went on a date with the Dalai Lama years ago but that the Tibetan monk "couldn't hit it."
Contributor Carrie Shirley wrote in the article that her mother was asked out by the Dalai Lama more than 40 years ago but rejected him because she thought he was a dork.
Excellent headline/pic/general vibe combo https://t.co/W1royNCNLc
According to Shirley, her mom met the Dalai Lama through a friend while she was studying in London in 1973. In the article she also included a photo that she claims is of her mom and the Dalai Lama from that time.
Shirley wrote she was sharing the story after hearing the Dalai Lama's recent comments about women, in which he said a female successor must be "very attractive."
Shirley's article was met with immediate criticism from groups like the Tibetan Feminist Collective, who called the article "disgusting and defamatory."
Archival photographs of the Dalai Lama from 1973 show little resemblance to the man pictured in the Broadly article.
This was soon noticed by many social media users.
@Enrique_Acevedo but it is not the Dalai Lama that Shirley's mom dated. Spot the Dalai Lama in 1973 in this picture
Tibetan and Buddhist groups began demanding Vice and Broadly retract the story.
Dear @VICE @Broadly: The man in this picture clearly isn't the Dalai Lama. The story is false. Take it down.
As the controversy grew, Shanghaiist and others reported that the article contained many other factual errors besides the dubious photo.
@broadly I recommend to take down the article and to ask professionals to do fact checking. https://t.co/XgYAiz8jQx
For one, Shanghaiist reported that the Dalai Lama rarely travels by himself, and the assumption that he would be allowed to wander with a group of random women was dubious at best.
In addition, Tenzin Peljor, a German Buddhist monk, wrote on Twitter that he found numerous factual errors in the article.
He said that the original article mistakenly referred to the "Charles River" -- a river that is in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In response to the criticism, Broadly added what a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News was a "clarification" to the article:
"In light of recent discoveries, Broadly cannot verify that the man in the photo is the Dalai Lama during his visit to Cambridge in 1973," the clarification reads. "However, the women in the photo swear that's who he claimed to be. This is their story."
The title of the article was also changed to add the word "claims."
A tweet from the Broadly account about the article was also deleted, but a cached version was still available online.
Vice spokesperson Jake Goldman told BuzzFeed News on Sunday that "steps were taken" to verify the claims, but said the clarification to the article and modification to the headline were added later because editors were unable to fully verify the story.