It’s typical of the media to spread some fake news, especially after the Beirut Port Explosion. People have started to spread false information, conspiracy theories, and fake videos/photos.
Right after the blast, fake photos started spreading on social media, showing a dark figure in the area.
Some believed the dark figure was an airplane that had to do something with the explosion. Many commented on Twitter that it’s just a bird.
Days later, though, a thermal video of the explosion went viral, showing a “hidden missile” hitting the hangar, allegedly where the dangerous substances were stored.
CNN caught the video and rushed to investigate its veracity. As it came to be, that recording was actually captured, in its initial unaltered form, by CNN Arabic social media producer Mehsen Mekhtfe.
“It’s my video and I have the original and it doesn’t show that,” he said. “When people ask me about it, I tell them, the doctored one is not true.” That has been his response to people pointing out that the video is fake.
He also added that he didn’t see or hear any drone or missile while recording the event.
In fact, the video was altered and this Instagram film reviewer, Alan Mehanna, in all good consciousness, and very angry about it for a valid reason, proved it in the video below:
Tiktok and YouTube prompted to remove the video that violates their policies, as they told CNN. Yet, people did not hesitate to share it, ignoring the content warning.
CNN took a step further, since it is one of their videos that was manipulated and for a dark purpose, and they contacted the email shown on the video.
The credited individual’s response was: “Someone or somebody hated me so much to put my email on a fake video.”
People tend to manipulate materials posted online for the fun of it, but this act has nothing funny about it. A massive crime has been committed and using it to twist the truth is a crime in itself.
It does beg the question: Who was so eager to mislead about what really happened that he/she took the efforts and time to manipulate that video and circulate it around?
