Back to Africa Check

CNN report on Kenya’s deputy president ‘cornered’ in guns scheme? No, screenshot manipulated

“Kenyan Deputy President Cornered in a Scheme of importing guns from Poland through his daughter,” reads the text on what seems to be a screenshot of a CNN news report, posted on Facebook.

In the screenshot, an elderly man appears to be looking at the text in surprise. An inset shows William Ruto, Kenya’s deputy president. 

On 13 February 2020, Kenya’s former sports minister Rashid Echesa was arrested and charged for an alleged fake KSh39 billion military equipment tender. Echesa was released on KSh1 million bail a few days later.

The Office of the Deputy President was dragged into the scandal after it was alleged that Echesa used its premises to hold meetings with his victims. Ruto dismissed the reports.

Is the screenshot of the CNN broadcast real? We checked.



Interview with US president’s lawyer


A Google reverse image search led us to a meme creation website where the CNN screenshot can be downloaded and customised. 

The man in the image is Rudy Giuliani, US president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and former mayor of New York city. The screenshot was taken from a CNN broadcast uploaded on YouTube on 27 July 2018.

The moment when the screenshot was taken is 19 minutes 29 seconds into the video. Giuliani was being interviewed about Trump’s knowledge of Russian involvement in the 2016 US presidential elections.

The text about Ruto and his photo were edited onto the image, using software from the meme creation website. The screenshot is fake. – Grace Gichuhi




 

Republish our content for free

Please complete this form to receive the HTML sharing code.

For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false

A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?

Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.

Publishers guide

Africa Check teams up with Facebook

Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.

The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.

You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.