{"id":107597,"date":"2020-10-15T12:50:47","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T19:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107597"},"modified":"2020-10-15T12:51:01","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T19:51:01","slug":"this-image-of-sri-lankas-prime-minister-with-the-former-chinese-foreign-minister-has-been-doctored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/15\/this-image-of-sri-lankas-prime-minister-with-the-former-chinese-foreign-minister-has-been-doctored\/","title":{"rendered":"This image of Sri Lanka’s prime minister with the former Chinese foreign minister has been doctored"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FactFact Check<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n

An image that appears to show Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Yang Jiechi, a high-ranking Chinese official, holding a framed aerial photograph of the island of Sri Lanka has been shared hundreds of times in multiple Facebook posts. The image, however, has been doctored; the original photo shows Rajapaksa and Yang holding a framed photo of themselves during a recent diplomatic visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image of Rajapaksa<\/a> and Yang<\/a>, who previously served as China’s foreign minister, was published on Facebook here<\/a> on October 9, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post\u2019s Sinhala-language caption translates to English as: He is trying to tell you a thousand words with this picture…children, wake up\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Screenshot of the Facebook post published on October 9, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image was also shared on Facebook here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>. It was even published on the front page<\/a> of the Daily Financial Times, an English-language newspaper in Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Screenshot of the Daily FT front page published on October 10, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image, however, has been digitally manipulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reverse image search found that the original photo was published on Rajapaksa\u2019s official Twitter account here<\/a> on October 9, 2020. The genuine photo shows that Rajapaksa and Yang are in fact holding a photo of themselves seated together.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a comparison of the doctored image (L) and the image in Rajapaksa\u2019s tweet (R):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Screenshot comparison of the doctored image (L) and the image from Rajapaksa\u2019s tweet (R)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daily Financial Times has since removed the doctored photo from the online version<\/a> of the paper\u2019s article. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fact Check An image that appears to show Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Yang Jiechi, a high-ranking Chinese official, holding a framed aerial photograph of the island of Sri Lanka has been shared hundreds of times in multiple Facebook posts. The image, however, has been doctored; the original photo shows Rajapaksa and Yang […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}