this "story" is spam, actually.
the dearth of people in this thread who can identify it as such is sad evidence of a lack of media literacy.
edit: i can't reply to @kescusay@lemmy.world because i deleted this post from lemmy.ml, but, i see they replied:
It’s the Independent, not spam. Indy100 is part of the Independent.
so, ok, I looked, and yeah, I see this "indy100" site is indeed part of a business called "The Independent" which carries the name of a former newspaper.
But this story, like most of the content on indy100, appears to have no basis in reality. It is not "news", it is dishonest garbage pretending to be factual for the purpose of selling the audience's attention to advertisers. aka spam.