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AltNews becomes a laughing stock, once again

The Commune

AltNews, a propaganda vehicle masquerading as fact-check website failed miserably yet again for wrongly “fact-checking”. This ‘Tablighis apologist’ website is known for branding media that do not confirm to its ideology as ‘fake news’. Sometimes, they fall into their own trap and end up getting schooled by actual experts. At other times, their ‘fake news busting’ attempts themselves end up as fake news.

In a recent article, it had tried to debunk an image of Lord Ram getting displayed on Times Square billboards that was getting widely shared as false.

It had put to use such amazing investigative skills that would make Ethan Hunt and James Bond envious.

This is how they deconstructed the truth behind the image:

Pictures of Hindu deity Ram were photoshopped into the original picture and subsequently flipped horizontally. The similarities are pointed out below.

    1. Green billboard on top of a white building (highlighted in red).
    2. Corona beer billboard close to the green billboard (highlighted in yellow).
    3. An identical number of cabs in the front most row on each side of the street (highlighted in green and orange).
    4. A picture of Ram has been superimposed on a poster of the musical Wicked(marked in blue). A portion of the green poster can be spotted behind Ram’s image.

Furthermore, a keyword search “times square billboard generator” on Google leads to makesweet.com where a temple of the same image is available.

Thus, a picture showing images of Hindu deity Ram splashed all over New York’s Times Square billboards was manufactured then flipped horizontally to escape reverse-image search attempts.

Many on social media shared the image thinking that it was original. It would have been good had AltNews stopped there. However, AltNews for its ‘fake news busting’ purposes pulled up a Tamil online news portal in an unwarranted manner.

In the days leading up to the Ram Janmabhoomi Bhoomi Poojan event, media reports emerged that images of Lord Ram and the Ram Mandir would be displayed on the billboards in Times Square in New York to commemorate the Ram Mandir Bhoomi Pujan.

Excited by the news, these media houses carried a feature image (a representative image) of Lord Ram being shown on the billboards of Times Square.

Kathir News, a prominent Tamil news outlet identified as ‘right wing portal’ too carried an article about the news with a representative feature image. It was conspicuous that the feature image in the portal was not an actual picture but a representative one. The headline of the article in Tamil – டைம்ஸ் ஸ்கொயரில் ஸ்ரீ ராமர் – பூமி பூஜை அன்று ஒலிக்க இருக்கும் ‘ஜெய் ஸ்ரீராம்’ கோஷங்கள்.! (Shri Ram in Times Square – Jai Shriram slogans to be played on Bhoomi Poojan day) too made it obvious that it is nothing but a representative image.

But in order to satiate its itch to defame news portals that does not confirm to its values, it went on say that the Kathir News carried a fake image in order to brand it as a ‘fake news’ portal.

However, AltNews became a laughing stock when images of Lord Ram and the Ram Mandir beamed on the billboards of Times Square.

Kathir News has strongly condemned AltNews’ nefarious attempts to slander it and has asked for a public apology.

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