Authors
A self-taught social media maverick, Saurabh realised the power of social media early on and began following and analysing false narratives and ‘fake news’ even before he entered the field of fact-checking professionally. He is fascinated with the visual medium, technology and politics, and at Newschecker, where he leads social media strategy, he is a jack of all trades. With a burning desire to uncover the truth behind events that capture people's minds and make sense of the facts in the noisy world of social media, he fact checks misinformation in Hindi and English at Newschecker.
Claim:
A video is going viral on Social Media in which a mob can be seen disrespecting Hindu Gods. It is being claimed that the anti-CAA protesters burnt the photos of Hindu Gods.
Verification:
The video was shared by a Hindu Activist named Pratheesh Viswanath. The video was shared with the claim that anti-CAA protesters desecrated the photos of Hindu Gods. The tweet by Prathheesh was shared by many including BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra.
This video is shocking …how can any protest have a right to defile the tenets of Hinduism ..who gives them the right to burn the pictures of Hindu Gods & Goddesses ..why should any protest be an Anti-Hindu protest??
Is this is what the Congress & Communists promote??#Shame https://t.co/9rn2gIwQ9T— Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) January 2, 2020
Shocking! How dare these fools burn the photos of Hindu Gods & Goddesses in the name of CAA protest? What the hell CAA has to do with Hindus? Their agenda is different & politicians of @INCIndia & @cpimspeak are nurturing this. @PMOIndia @rashtrapatibhvn @VPSecretariat @AmitShah pic.twitter.com/odDAvYT34T
— Dr. Jayasree Nair (@jayasreenair1) January 1, 2020
Other similar claims can be viewed here.
Some other users raised question on the authenticity of the video.
Where is this video taken? (Clearly not winter in Delhi) When? Why blank out the voice? I’m suspicious https://t.co/NUrYsqf9Hy
— Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) January 2, 2020
While the claim is very sensitive and can cause communal unrest if the same if found by Fake News Factories that are highly active in WhatsApp groups. As we began to fact check the claim, we tried generating keyframes of the clip. Since the quality of video was not good, we didn’t find anything to corroborate.
Now, as we all know, YouTube is the biggest platform in terms of video content, we searched YouTube for more information but we couldn’t get much information except for the same video that is uploaded on YouTube on 3 September 2018 which is long before even Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 was announced. The length of the YouTube video is 4 minutes 31 seconds.
We are still searching for more information on the video and will update the article as soon as we get more information. However, the uploading date of the YouTube video alone debunks the ‘Misleading’ claim made by Pratheesh Viswanath, BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra and others.
Result: Misleading
Sources
YouTube Search
Authors
A self-taught social media maverick, Saurabh realised the power of social media early on and began following and analysing false narratives and ‘fake news’ even before he entered the field of fact-checking professionally. He is fascinated with the visual medium, technology and politics, and at Newschecker, where he leads social media strategy, he is a jack of all trades. With a burning desire to uncover the truth behind events that capture people's minds and make sense of the facts in the noisy world of social media, he fact checks misinformation in Hindi and English at Newschecker.
