Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s message of support for Hindus ahead of the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024.
According to one social media user, Meloni’s “message for Hindus”, when translated from Italian, states, “Best wishes to the Hindus in India and around the world on the Pran Pratistha ceremony. By restoring your prestige after hundreds of years of struggle, you have set an example for the world. Lots of love.”
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here and here.
Fact
Newschecker noticed that the video message did not have the words “Ayodhya, Ram Mandir, Hindus, India”, or their Italian translations, raising our doubts. We also ran a keyword search for “Meloni wishes Hindu Ram Mandir”, which did not throw up any relevant news reports.
We saw that a user had requested the EZDubs Twitter bot for an English dubbed version of the message. We learnt that EZDubs is a real-time AI dubbing tool that “dub videos in minutes, in the voice of the original speaker!”
We saw that the dubbed version of Meloni’s message showed the Italian PM thanking people for wishing her on her birthday. According to an AI subtitling tool, Kapwing, her message stated, “Thank you all for the birthday wishes you sent me privately with posts on social media, so much encouragement from which I will treasure. You are my strength, I love you,” which confirms that the viral video is not of Meloni wishing Hindus ahead of the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony.
Newschecker also traced the original message to January 15, 2024, Meloni’s birthday, when it was first posted by the Italian PM on her Twitter account.
Also Read: Old Video Falsely Claimed As Pakistan’s Retaliatory Strikes Against Iran
Result: False
Sources
Tweet, Giorgia Meloni, January 15, 2024
Tweet, EZDubs, January 21, 2024
Kapwing video creation tool
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
