All posts filed under: debunked

Macron-Modi Meeting: Debunking Viral Misleading Claims

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After the international AI summit in Paris, media outlets and social media accounts linked to the Russian government circulated a video claiming that French President Emmanuel Macron had snubbed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ignoring him and refusing to shake his hand. However, this claim is misleading. A longer version of the same footage shows that the two leaders had already met outside the venue and entered together. Additional photos and videos confirm that they had shaken hands beforehand. The claim first surfaced on 11 February on Sputnik, Russia’s state news agency, which is widely regarded as a mouthpiece for Russian government propaganda. The outlet Russian-langage service reported: “Macron defiantly ignored Indian PM Modi and did not shake his hand at the AI summit in Paris.”The allegation was accompanied by a video appearing to show Macron disregarding Modi’s extended hand. The French president was then seen greeting other world leaders at the closing ceremony of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris on February 11, including US Vice President JD Vance and European Commission President Ursula von der …

Iranian television broadcasts barrage of misinformation to present Ronaldo as pro-Palestine

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With eight textbook examples of misinformation in just two minutes, the Iranian public television channel IRIB broadcast a report on the football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo on June 15. The report made it seem like Ronaldo is a champion of the Palestinian cause, while expressing his “hatred” for Israel. But in reality, the story was rife with disinformation and crudely edited. Television programs in Iran are state-run, and most of them promote the ideology and policies of the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who personally appoints the heads of each channel. Many Iranians, aware of the propaganda broadcast on state TV, turn to Persian channels from abroad that are available via satellite. On June 15, it was one of these state-run TV channels, IRIB, broadcast a report in Persian about Cristiano Ronaldo and his supposed support for the Palestinian cause. In the two-minute report, we counted no less than eight falsehoods… which we’ll take a closer look at in this article. Playing against Iceland, not Israel First off, the report claims that the captain of the …

Beware of fake videos circulating that claim to show a Chinese rocket

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Ever since authorities announced that a Chinese rocket would fall back to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry last weekend, many fake videos of this incident have emerged on social media and have even made their way to international media outlets. According to state media, the Long March 5B re-entered the atmosphere at 10.24am Beijing time on Sunday May 9, 2021. The coordinates put the point of impact in the Indian Ocean somewhere above the Maldives archipelago and south of India. Since then, many images have been circulating on social media, mainly on Twitter, supposedly showing authentic images of the Chinese spaceship falling. At least three of these videos have been identified as fake by the FRANCE 24 Observers team. A video of the Chinese rocket falling? No, it’s a meteor in Australia This video was shared on Twitter by various users, who claim it shows the moment that Long March 5B re-entered the atmosphere. However, this video was actually filmed in 2016. If you look carefully, you can see the date and coordinates on the …

Afghan Police published US Marines video presented as their army striking the Taliban

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On October 12, the Afghan National Police posted a video on Facebook that they said showed Afghan helicopters bombing Taliban positions in Helmand province. The conflict between the Afghan Army and the Taliban in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan has been intensifying since October 9. Both sides are using social media to show off what they perceive to be their military successes. But it seems like the Afghan police were a little too quick to post one particular video that they said showed the army striking Taliban positions. Turns out this video shows, in reality, a training exercise carried out by the United States Marine Corps in Arizona, USA, in 2017. The video, which was later picked up by numerous Afghan media outlets, was filmed in night vision mode and shows a helicopter bombing a compound. On the Facebook page of the Afghan National Police, the video garnered more than 20,000 views. The Afghan National Police posted this video along with the caption “Last night, Helmand was turned into a cemetery for the Taliban”. The …

Online videos falsely claim that face masks can cause CO2 poisoning

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To wear a mask or not to, that is the question that has been fiercely debated online since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the claims made by opponents of the protective face coverings is that masks can lead to suffocation from the carbon dioxide (CO2) we exhale. Proponents of this theory have posted videos online in which they use gas detectors to claim that the amount of CO2 we breathe when wearing a mask is extremely dangerous. However, there is no factual basis for that claim. We take a closer look. In a flurry of videos posted online, social media users – most of them American – explain that wearing a mask can be dangerous for your health. To demonstrate this, they use a gas detector, which can be bought in a hardware store for somewhere between 40 and 100 euros, to “measure” the CO2 level inside their masks. In the videos, the meter goes wild when they start to breathe, indicating a high level of carbon dioxide in the space between …

Pro-regime Iranians circulate fake video to promote the death sentence for three activists

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Iran’s Supreme Court announced on July 10 that three men who had participated in protests against the government last November had been sentenced to death. Many people took to social media to protest the announcement, calling for the sentence to be overturned. At the same time, ultra-conservative supporters of the regime started circulating a video that they claimed showed the young activists carrying out violent armed robberies in an attempt to turn public opinion against them. In reality, the footage in this video is old and has nothing to do with the three accused men. UPDATED 20-07-2020: On July 19, the Iranian government suspended the execution of the three activists, Amirhossein Moradiyea, Saeed Tamjidi, and Mohammad Rajabi. The Iran Supreme Court accepted the request for a new trial that had been submitted by the defendants’ lawyers, Babak Paknia, one of the lawyers, informed AFP on Sunday. Last November, an increase in petrol prices sparked a nationwide protest movement in Iran, with demonstrations taking place in more than 200 towns and cities. The regime’s crackdown was …

No, this video does not show a friendly fire incident by the Iranian navy

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On May 10 Iran’s navy tested an anti-ship missile in the Gulf of Oman, but something went wrong and the missile hit a support vessel, killing 19 sailors and wounding 15 more. Video supposedly showing the incident was widely shared on Arab-language social media and broadcast on the Al Arabiya network. But the video, in fact, shows an exercise by the Norwegian navy in 2013.

Investigation: videos reveal location of mass drowning on Iran-Afghan border

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Dozens of Afghan migrants are feared dead after Iranian border guards allegedly forced them into a river on the Iran-Afghan border on May 1. Of the 57 men and boys in the group, only 12 are known to have survived. One of the survivors told the France 24 Observers he and the others were arrested and tortured by guards from an Iranian border post overlooking the Harirud river.

Did these Chinese doctors’ skin turn black after getting Covid-19? There’s more to this story…

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Photos of two Chinese doctors who survived Covid-19 in Wuhan, China, are circulating widely on social media and news outlets around the world. The photos are accompanied by the claim that their skin turned black after they were infected with the novel coronavirus. The claim is true – but the strange change in color was only temporary.