Every event has its share of strong and impressive imagery. But also often its share of false images. And the recent earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria are no exception.
The BBC notably revised some viral tweets, showing for some a nuclear explosion or even a tsunami ravaging a little further into Turkish territory. Tweets with several hundred thousand views for some, and for the most part completely untrue.
No dog in distress or nuclear explosion
A video of a nuclear power plant explosion, for example, has been broadcast many times, particularly by verified accounts or featured like Twitter Blue subscribers.
However, this video is not related to the earthquakes in Turkey. The incident did occur, but in August 2020. It involved the explosion of an ammonium nitrate reserve in the port of Beirut.
Another image that has marked social networks: that of this dog almost crying for help, its paw placed near what is supposed to belong to a lifeless body. But after doing some research, it turns out that the image is from October 18, 2018. However, many accounts tweeted this photo on their accounts.
An Anglo-Iranian comedian, Omid Djalili, also posted a video on his Twitter account where he claims that a tsunami occurred after the earthquake, off the Turkish coast. The video, viewed more than 200,000 times, however, was not taken in recent days but in September 2018, in Indonesia.
Other fake videos, of collapsing buildings or scaffolding, have also generated a lot of views, retweets and likes in recent days. To verify the veracity of a photo, or at least its context, the use of Google’s “reverse search” or its Google Lens tool is highly recommended.
Source: BFM TV
