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What does this logo look like to you?

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It might not look like
much at first glance

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but it did cause quite a stir online.

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This logo was found on the side
of a mobile COVID-19 testing truck.

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The photo is real and so is the logo.

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A viral post on Facebook claim
that this logo represents Anubis,

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the ancient Egyptian God
of death and the afterlife.

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The rumors circulated
among groups tied to QAnon,

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the once fringe conspiracy theory that
has made its way into the mainstream.

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QAnon members said the logo revealed
a deep state plot against Americans.

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They shared fears that these testing
trucks were up to something nefarious.

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Of course it turns out the logo
is actually an aardvark.

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An aardvark?

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Yes, an aardvark, which I learned,

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is an African mammal who is nocturnal
and feeds largely on bugs.

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Sarah Spencer, a journalist
with factcheck.org,

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ventured down the virtual rabbit hole
to figure out where this logo came from

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and how it ended up linked
to an Egyptian death deity.

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We initially were presented
with this meme on Facebook.

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Why does COVID-19 testing facility
have a logo of Anubis, the God of death?

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The first step would be to do just
a basic reverse image search.

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It can give you a starting off point

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and give you a sense of maybe
how widespread something is.

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You can see obviously where the person
who put together this meme shows,

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to select in red, indicating what
they think is interesting about it.

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That will often skew an image search

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but you can also click and download,

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and then put it into any
photo editing software.

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In a picture like this,
I would crop it like that,

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so that you get part of an actual picture.

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Then you can plug that picture

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into your standard reverse image search.

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Here, in TinEye, you can
select your cropped version.

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In TinEye, unlike in Google,

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you can sort by newest to oldest.

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So in this case, it was used
in a Philadelphia business journal -

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a story about this area business
that had started retooling its trucks

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to be used as mobile testing
units during COVID-19.

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They identify the name of the
company as Aardvark Mobile.

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So then just a simple, 
very simple internet search,

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a pretty obvious first result is
the Aardvark Mobile Tours website

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that shares the same logo
that you see on the truck.

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You see they have
a mobile health care unit.

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That looks pretty close.

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Very similar setup,
yeah, very similar setup.

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One thing that TinEye 
is really good at is finding

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where images first
started showing up online.

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One of its first iterations
showed up on 8KUN,

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which is a message board that often
is home to conspiracy theorists threads.

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It's where a lot of conspiracy theories
develop and then bubble up

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before they start showing up
on Facebook and Twitter.

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So your tip to a general reader -

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if they see an image that
makes these kinds of claims,

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what's the 1st thing they should
have in the back of their mind?

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What's the 1st thing they should do?

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If you're scrolling through your social
media, you see something

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that really speaks to you
and really feels right,

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and you think, yes, that really
solidifies what I think.

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That should be a warning to you
that it might be questionable.

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Often you'll find that the facts
that are included in memes

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that feel the most right,
are actually wrong.

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The world feels scary right now

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and the future feels unknown.

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Reading something on the internet
and assuming the worst,

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seems almost reasonable.

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But as Sarah said, if it feels right,

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you might wanna check first.

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And if something requires
an elaborate explanation,

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maybe there's a simpler answer.

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Sometimes a logo is just a logo.

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Sometimes an aardvark is just an aardvark.

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And why, by the way, is this truck
company named after an aardvark?

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The owner of Aardvark
Tours chose the name Aardvark

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because it starts with AA

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and way back when there were
yellow pages in the phone book.

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Sure, we had AA Carpet
Cleaning, AAA Carpet Cleaning.

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And aardvark starts with two A's.

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So, that's how that came to be.

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Until next time.

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Don't spread fake news. Keep it real.

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I'm Hari Sreenivasan,
and this is Take on Fake.

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Thanks for watching.

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Want more tips&tricks for 
becoming a better fact checker?

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