Authors
Vasudha noticed the growing problem of mis/disinformation online after studying New Media at ACJ in Chennai and became interested in separating facts from fiction. She is interested in learning how global issues affect individuals on a micro level. Before joining Newschecker’s English team, she was working with Latestly.
Claim
An alleged screenshot of Virat Kohli’s Instagram story where the former Indian Skipper allegedly made an indecent and objectionable remark against Pakistan, while congratulating England on winning the T-20 World Cup.
Several users also criticised Kohli for his offensive language.
Links to such posts can be found here, here, here and here.
Fact
A keyword search for “Virat Kohli,” “Instagram,” “England,” & “Pakistan” on Google led us to multiple news reports from November 13, 2022, on Indian Cricketer’s Instagram story congratulating England on winning T-20 World Cup.
One such report by India Today, titled ‘T20 World Cup Final: Virat Kohli congratulates England after they beat Pakistan by 5 wickets,’ carried a screenshot of the former Indian skipper’s Instagram story applauding the Jos Buttler-led team on their World Cup triumph.
In the Instagram story, Kohli had shared a picture of England cricketers from the recently concluded T-20 world cup with the caption, “Congratulations England. Well deserved 👍🏻.” There was no mention of Pakistan in his story.
On comparing the viral image with the screenshot of Kohli’s Instagram story featured in the India Today report, we found the both to be identical- except from the caption.
Notably, an Instagram story disappears after 24 hours from the time it was posted, and hence we could not access Kohli’s story directly from his account. However, several news outlets carried screengrab from his Instagram story congratulating England following their world cup win, none of which mentioned anything about Pakistan. Such reports can be seen here, here, here and here.
Sports-centric news outlets Sportskeeda and CricTracker also shared Kohli’s Instagram story congratulating England for winning the T20 World Cup 2022. Their tweets can be seen below.
In none of these screengrabs, Kohli mentioned anything about Pakistan in his Instagram story, leave alone using abusive or objectionable remarks for the men-in-green. This led us to conclude that the viral image claiming to show Kohli using objectionable language for Pakistan has been digitally edited.
Notably, while scanning through Facebook posts carrying the viral image, we spotted one user, Benjamin Carby Tennyson, had shared the picture on November 13, 2022 with the caption, “Yeh meri story edit to buri tarah fail rahi ha,” (the story I edited is going viral).
On scanning through his Facebook wall, we found the Tennyson had posted the edited image on November 13, 2022, a few hours before he made a post saying that the picture he edited is going viral (as seen above).
A quick glance at Tennyson’s social media posts would lead anyone to assume that he is a cricket fan, and keeps on sharing memes/edited images of cricketers.
We could thus conclude that the viral screengrab of the alleged Instagram story by Virat Kohli following England’s victory over Pakistan in the recently concluded T20 World Cup has been digitally altered. Kohli did not make any objectionable remark against Pakistan.
Result: Altered Photo
Sources
Report By India Today, Dated November 13, 2022
Tweets By @Sportskeeda & @Cricketracker, Dated November 13, 2022
Facebook Post By Benjamin Carby Tennyson, Dated November 13, 2022
Self Analysis
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Authors
Vasudha noticed the growing problem of mis/disinformation online after studying New Media at ACJ in Chennai and became interested in separating facts from fiction. She is interested in learning how global issues affect individuals on a micro level. Before joining Newschecker’s English team, she was working with Latestly.
