Analysis: Social media posts about Afghanistan — From False to Verified
In this article, Annie Lab delves into three unverified social media content about Afghanistan in turmoil
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Misleading
Non-altered (not manipulated) evidence is used out of context or in a misleading way. The key evidence may be fact-based, but the claim and information associated with the evidence is not true.
Misleading: This photo does not show Afghans waiting for a plane in Kabul
The image showing people standing on passenger boarding steps was not taken in Afghanistan. It’s from a 14-year-old video shot in California.
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Misleading: Photos of HKU bulletin board with slogans of dissent were shot in 2016 and 2018, not after student body’s recent apology over controversial motion
The misleading Facebook and Weibo posts featured a collage of two old news photos taken from local news media outlets.
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Misleading: This video of Hong Kong kindergarteners conducting Chinese flag-raising ceremony was filmed years ago
Online posts claimed the Chinese Communist Party started “brainwashing” kids in Hong Kong recently, backed with a video of kindergarten pupils in a flag-raising ceremony. However, it was produced in 2015, according to a media interview with the kindergarten principal.
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Misleading: This 2013 article refers to MERS, not COVID-19, and did not say coronaviruses are human-made
The 2013 article has nothing to do with the current COVID-19 pandemic. The study mentioned in the story does not conclude coronaviruses can be human-made.
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Misleading: Hong Kong’s radiation levels neither exceeded safety limits nor increased drastically after issues reported at Taishan nuclear plant
The radiation levels remained consistent. A nuclear expert says a comparison with Fukushima is pointless as readings are ‘well within the safety limit’.
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Misleading: This photo does not show Myanmar Army protecting protesters
The insignia and logo in the uniforms and caps belonged to the Karen National Police Force, a police unit of an organization seeking autonomy for the Karen ethnic group.
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Misleading: This video does not show Mexican immigrants in “storage containers” in the US; it shows mobile homes at a quarantine site in China
A tweet suggested the U.S. President Joe Biden has created what looks like “concentration camps” at the U.S.-Mexican border but the embedded video clip actually shows a COVID-19 quarantine site in Yunnan province, China.
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Misleading: This picture does not show a protester in Kalay, Myanmar, being shot with his hands raised
The photo claims to show a man named Zin Myo Maung being shot in Kalay in Myanmar. However, the photo was taken in Yangon and does not show him.
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Misleading: These photos do not show the Burmese burning the Sino-Myanmar pipeline
Photos in the tweet are either old news photos or stock photos. None of the photos was taken in Myanmar or related to the ongoing protests.
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Misleading: Two pictures in this collage show protesters in Turkey, not Myanmar
While some images show the scenes from the ongoing protests in Myanmar, others are old photos taken in Turkey in 2011 and 2013.
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Misleading: These rescue photos do not show Vietnamese working for ‘illegal islands’ in the South China Sea
The crew members had been stranded on a grounded dredger for three days that had just completed a construction work in the Cua Viet channel.
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Misleading: Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at Japan’s airports does not correspond to domestic cases in China
Annie Lab found the popular online calculation has no validity. Three datasets do not show what the claim implied at all.
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Misleading: This video does not show Hong Kongers being transported to “re-education camps”
It shows supporters of jailed activists Joshua Wong and two others bidding farewell when the trio left court after sentencing, not being sent to re-education camps.
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Misleading: This video does not show closed stores in Shanghai or China’s economic collapse
The Nanjing Road in this video is not in Shanghai. It is located in one of the counties of Jiangsu province.
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Misleading: This video shows kindergarten education in China, not Japan
Children being taught about public transportation etiquette were from Xinjiang, China.
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Misleading: This video does not show China using a large sonic gun to harass Indian soldiers
The original video was produced in 2016. It shows a fire alarm, not a sonic gun. It has nothing to do with the China-India conflict in 2020.
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Misleading: This video shows failed rocket launch in Japan, not China
The rocket in the video was actually developed in Japan by a startup company Interstellar Technologies. The Japanese rocket, named MOMO-2, failed to launch and exploded more than two years ago on June 30, 2018, in the northern island of Hokkaido.
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Misleading: Popular coronavirus origin video by Hong Kong legislator consists of unsubstantiated conspiracy claims
Pro-establishment legislator Ann Chiang Lai-wan’s popular video features a number of misleading and false claims that have been debunked.
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Misleading: US health agency did not find Chinese herbal medicine 连花清瘟 effective in COVID-19 treatment
The study in question was actually conducted by researchers in China and published in a journal by a Dutch company.
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