This goofy 15-second video is an obvious fake. I received it this morning over WhatsApp on my phone and forwarded it to a couple of friends without a problem. A few hours later, when I wanted to forward it to yet another friend, WhatsApp refused to do so. So I tried to upload it from my computer. I still couldn't send it.

Then I remembered that WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, which has promised to control "fake news" prior to the election. But I didn't know that WhatsApp - a supposedly encrypted private messenger - was also being censored.

Here is the official WhatsApp disclaimer, quoted in Business Today:

WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption ensures that only you and the person you're communicating with can read what's sent. Nobody in between, not even WhatsApp, can read the messages.

And yet here we are. An alternative title to this story could be "Hey, Facebook! Purely out of your Trump Derangement Syndrome you've just destroyed the reputation and devalued your own product, which until now I thought was the best communication app made for the phone."

So I uploaded this video on Facebook as a test. The post came out visible, but the video is overlaid with this warning:

Altered Video. The same altered video was checked in another post by independent fact-checkers.

And below the post there's a bandolier of six articles debunking this video as a fake, among them three world's major news agencies: Reuters is British, AFP is French (Agence France-Press) and only AP is American. And even though the Russian TASS is glaringly missing, can we say "foreign interference"?



However, this overlay with the fact-checking doesn't work if the video is embedded alone outside the post, as seen above.

My little experiment has led me to posting it on Twitter, but to my surprise the video is still there as of this writing, although the low number of shares may be a sign of partial suppression of its exposure.

Next, we need to fact-check this picture and ask the three world's news agencies to verify it it hasn't been altered or otherwise tempered with.

Clearly the video is altered. Granpa Joe only ever wears black face diapers. It's clearly a fraud.

I don't see any puppet strings... clearly a fake.

After a thorough screening of the visuals, our Transatlantic Kommissariat of Fact Checking™ judged:

1. Having youthfully climbed the ladder and now on the platform, Genosse Beiden switched into his trademark sprightly trot and thusly reached the ten feet distant microphone. That impressive performance has been fully obscured by some inexplicable electronic manipulations!
   
2. Once at the mike, Genosse Biþen did NOT say "Hello, Minnesota!", he said "Trunalimunumaprzure, Michigan!".
   
3. And then, now directly addressing the people of Tampax City, AZ, Genosse Baizuo¹ continued the.. you know.. you know, the thing.

¹ never heard of? see e.g. here

Red Square was t.o.l.d.

Altered Video. The same altered video was checked in another post by independent fact-checkers.

Independent of what?

jackalopelipsky wrote:Red Square was t.o.l.d.

Altered Video. The same altered video was checked in another post by independent fact-checkers.

Independent of what?

Independent of the facts, Comrade 'pelipsky. Of course, not independent of The Current Truth™.

Oh...Kapitan Kangaroo,

'pelipsky thought INDEPENDENT meant the fact-checkers didn't get paid for their work for The Party.™

j.