Not Real News
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week.
Claim
A photo shows three Afghan women chained to one another, walking behind a man who holds the end of the chain.
The facts
The photo is fake. It was based on an old photo, and the chains were digitally added. Photographer Murat Düzyol told The Associated Press he took the original photo in Erbil, Iraq, in February 2003. Tweets sharing the altered photo were among several misleading social media posts that began to emerge after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on Sunday. Twitter users posted the manipulated photo and suggested that it showed women in Afghanistan walking behind a man.
Claim
A photo shows a plane full of Afghan refugees being evacuated from the country this week, with not a single woman or child among them.
The facts
In fact, this photo appeared online as early as 2018. It shows Afghan refugees being sent back to their country from Turkey, according to a story at the time from Turkey’s state-run news agency, the Anadolu Agency. The photo looks down the aisle of an airplane filled with men, some of them waving at the camera.
Photos captured this week show that hundreds of Afghan men, women and children have been evacuated from Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.
Claim
A photo shows the Taliban flag flying on the tower of the Afghanistan presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday night.
The facts
The photo is fake. An old photo was digitally altered to make it appear that the Taliban flag was flying above the palace. On Sunday, Taliban forces seized the presidential palace. The Associated Press took photos and video Tuesday showing that the Afghan flag was still flying from the building. The photo that was manipulated was first shared in 2020 and originally showed the palace adorned with Afghan flags. In the manipulated version, the Taliban flag replaces the Afghan flag. It looks clearly altered: the flag appears too rectilinear and the script too flat to be on a moving flag. The edited photo was shared across social media and by some media outlets, with captions saying it showed the fall of Afghanistan.
Claim
A video shows Taliban fighters jumping on a trampoline this week as they celebrate their return to power in Afghanistan.
The facts
This video is not current and has circulated online for more than a year. In the days since the Taliban seized power across Afghanistan, capturing all major cities in less than a week, social media users have shared videos of the insurgents allegedly celebrating their victory in gyms, amusement parks and presidential suites. One such video, which social media users claim shows Taliban fighters rejoicing on a trampoline, has circulated since at least March 2020.
Claim
Video from a camera inside a home shows the house shaking from a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Saturday.
The facts
The video being shared online shows an earthquake that struck nearly three years ago in Alaska, not Haiti. As images and videos emerged from Haiti following Saturday’s earthquake, social media users began misrepresenting the Alaska video from 2018 to suggest it showed the earthquake rumbling through a home in Haiti.
