WEBVTT

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- On August 4th, there
was a massive explosion

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at the port in Beirut, Lebanon.

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(explosion rumbles)

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Cellphones caught the blast
from almost every angle.

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Videos spread through social media

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and messaging platforms
almost immediately.

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Some were real, some were manipulated.

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A few appeared to show a missile striking

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just before the blast.

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These videos were doctored.

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When investigative
reporter Emmanuelle Saliba

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received one of those videos
from a source in Beirut,

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she knew she had to get to work.

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- As an investigative reporter,

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my role is to try and figure out

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what caused the explosion in this case.

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So I got in touch with
someone who owns a business

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at the Port of Beirut.

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His family has been
operating there for 40 years.

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And in this exchange he said,
"Let me send you a video.

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"I think a missile caused the explosion."

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I was already pretty
skeptical because I had seen

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some fairly easily
debunkable videos out there.

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So what we're looking at
here is the first video

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that came out that was manipulated.

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What's interesting in this case

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is it's an original witness video,

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so we're actually seeing the scene,

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but what the person did was add a missile.

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And I'll show you the original
video, which is this one.

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(car horn honking)

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(explosion rumbles)

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What's great now about
what's happening online

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is that as soon as a
manipulated video comes out,

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there's so many journalists
who are trained to do this,

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that very quickly they're being debunked.

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So a colleague at the BBC who
focuses on disinformation,

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he debunked it.

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And we're all sort of,

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even though we work for different outlets,

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all looking at each other's
work and helping each other out.

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So I had that in my head when
I was talking to my source

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and I thought, "We
already debunked a video,

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"I'm pretty skeptical about this one.

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"Send it to me."

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He sent it to me through WhatsApp

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and he said he got it
from friends and families.

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You know, imagine his
business has been destroyed,

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they want answers,

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they wanna know what caused the explosion.

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I looked at the video and
it's an infrared video.

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I'm gonna show you a version that is here

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that still lives on Twitter.

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I'll play it for you so you can see.

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You can tell that these are two videos

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that have been edited together

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to make it appear as if
it's one continuous shot.

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But just by looking at it,
anyone could sort of see

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that they're taken from
two different angles.

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There's also this thermal imaging layer

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which is a bit strange

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considering that the video
camera falls to the floor

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and you can see it was
taken by a human being.

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What human being has an infrared camera?

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- This is a professional piece of gear.

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- Right. The video's shaky.

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No security footage would've
come out that quickly

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given the strength of the explosion,

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so you just start piecing
these things together.

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I recognized this first shot

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and I knew that it was taken
by a social media editor

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who was actually on the
ground who works for CNN.

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And here's the original video.

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You see it doesn't have that filter

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and when you play it out,

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(explosion rumbling)

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you can see that there isn't a missile

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that comes through the sky and hits.

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So that was added.

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I spoke to him and he said,

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"Yeah, my video was taken, manipulated,

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and I kept getting all these emails

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about the supposed missile in my video,"

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which you can see isn't there.

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And quickly after, Twitter
actually put out an event

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to show that fact checkers had concluded

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that the video of the Beirut
explosion was doctored

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and it included a fake missile

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and they featured my tweet
and my thread I did on it

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and they also featured
a few other reporters

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that had also been doing a
similar type of debunking work.

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So it's important for us
to really be quite quick

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to dismiss these and
quite quick to debunk them

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and really show people
how we do it, right?

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It's easy to say this isn't real,

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but we need people to understand
why and how it's not real.

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So I actually wrote back to
him and I laid out my steps

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and said, "Here's how
I know it's not real."

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And he's like, "Okay,
that's so great to know,

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"I'm gonna tell all my
friends and my family."

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And it's really helpful, I
think, if you're an individual

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to create a list with all of
these different journalists

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so that you can monitor
them during breaking news.

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- Build your own little stable of experts

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that you trust, that are verified,

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and that way you might see
that what you're about to share

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actually showed up here as
something that you shouldn't.

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- Exactly.

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- The August 4th blast in
Beirut was devastating.

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Lives were lost, thousands were injured,

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billions of dollars of damage was done.

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We all wanted to know how did this happen.

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We got explanations immediately.

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But reliable news takes time.

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So what do we do when information
travels faster than facts?

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Build a list like Emmanuelle recommends.

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Find journalists you
trust and follow them.

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Then when big news breaks,

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and if 2020 has taught us anything,

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it most surely will break,

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you'll already know who to go to.

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Until next time, keep it
real. Don't spread fake news.

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I'm Hari Sreenivasan and
this is "Take On Fake."

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(gentle music)

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Thanks for watching.

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For more in-depth
investigations like this one,

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follow our guest Emmanuelle
Saliba on Twitter.

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You can find a link in the description.

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Let us know what you think in the comments

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and don't forget to subscribe so you know

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when the next episode
of "Take On Fake" drops.