PHOTO: COURTESY
The screengrabs were not generated by Citizen TV.
A collage of screengrabs purportedly generated by Citizen TV widely shared on X(formerly Twitter) on July 18, 2024 are fake.
The accompanying post states: “The media plays a significant role in either promoting peace or causing destruction in a country. In Rwanda, biased media was implicated in inciting the genocide. #WeWantPeace #KenyaNiYetu #TheGenocideMedia👇.”
Accompanying the post are two images: one shows a man pouring water on a fire with the caption “Acha Kenya ichomeke(let Kenya burn),” while the other depicts a man throwing a stone with the caption “We love violence.”
The images bear the Citizen TV logo and the ‘Sema na Citizen’ Swahili broadcast template with the text “Genocide Media.”
Similar images were also shared here, here, here and here on July 20, 2024. Citizen TV is a renowned media station in Kenya and is among those that have been covering the protests since they began in June 2024.
Following the protests, there has been a deluge of misinformation targeting politicians, police and even media houses, prompting an investigation into the purported screengrabs.
WOKN conducted a digital image forensics analysis using FotoForensics and discovered that the lower third reading “The Genocide Media,” the captions “Acha Kenya ichomeke” and “We love violence,” and the Citizen logo were all faked.
Also, a reverse image search on Yandex found that this image was captured by Reuters for an article about Azimio La Umoja Kenya One Alliance supporters, led by Opposition leader Raila Odinga, demonstrating against the high cost of living and increased taxes on July 31, 2023.
Another reverse image search on Yandex revealed that this image was first taken by Ben Curtis on January 28, 2008 during the 2007 post-election violence. It has since been used here, here and here.
Further, it is clear that the ‘Sema na Citizen’ show airs in Swahili establishing that the purported screengrabs were fabricated.
WOKN also reached out to Citizen Digital who confirmed that the screengrabs did not originate from the media house. “I had not seen the screengrab on social media but it is fake. Citizen TV did not broadcast such material,” wrote Fridah Naliaka, the Digital Sub-editor Royal Media Services.
WOKN thoroughly investigated the purported screengrabs allegedly created by Citizen TV and found them to be fake, and aimed at discrediting the station’s credibility.
This fact-check was written by Woman Kenya Network fact-checker Trizah Mmwanda and edited by Woman Kenya Project lead Shadrack Agamira.This article is published by Maryciana Adema.
This fact-check was produced by Woman Kenya Network, under the African Fact-Checking Incubator programme, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance(AFCA).
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