At the end of March 2023, messages appeared on social networks about embarrassment on American television: during a story about toilets, a video was shown with the participation of the President of Ukraine. We verified the authenticity of the video that went viral on the Internet.
Viral video lasts 1 minute. 3 sec. and allegedly represents a recording of a broadcast from a certain VBN TV channel. At the beginning of the video, the presenter talks about “tilted” toilets, and in the third second a short excerpt with Vladimir Zelensky is shown, after which the journalist begins to burst into laughter and cannot stop until the very end of the recording. At the same time, at the bottom of the video there is a caption in English: “A coincidence or not?”
“Verified” discovered two popular options for what allegedly happened on air. One of the versions appeared in the Telegram channel Voblya (148,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), the authors of which claim that reports about toilets and Zelensky simply followed one another: “Americans are laughing at the political situation in their country. The presenter, voicing two news stories in a row about Americans being forced to save on toilets and about increasing funding for Ukraine, could not hold back her laughter and allowed herself to add the phrase: “They save on toilets, but millions are poured into Ukraine.” According to another, more popular explanation, the video with Zelensky appeared in a report about toilets by accident, as reported by the channels “Live broadcast"(621,000 views), "Ne.Sugar"(233,000), "Bullet"(162,000), "First People's"(160,000), "From the scene"(102,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(100,000), "Staff Correspondent"(98,000), "Breaking news"(94,000), "Special Operation Z"(92,000), "Russia 2.0" (54,000) and "Teledno"(34,000). The alleged blunder was reported on VKontakte, where posts received hundreds and thousands of likes (examples here, here, here And here), as well as on Twitter (here, here, here And here).
“Verified” looked at the viral recording - in it, contrary to publications on social networks, the presenter never mentioned Ukraine. In general, the journalist spent most of her time apologizing to her colleagues for not being able to stop laughing. Nevertheless, the publication Ura.ru in its social networks published part of the recording with Russian subtitles - at the moment when the caption “They save on toilets, but millions of dollars a year is poured into Ukraine” appears on the video, in fact the woman utters a different phrase: “The company says that this can save millions of dollars a year.”
In the video, the logo and title are visible behind the presenter's back. MoneyWatch - divisions of the news department of the American television and radio company CBS. The search for “moneywatch toilet” on YouTube is one of the first results in extradition — a video entitled “Reporter can’t stop laughing during story about toilet tilted downwards”, published on the platform on December 19, 2019 by CBS Boston. The description of the video states that the incident occurred on the morning of the publication, and the presenter's name is Diane King Hall. Same video posted on the WBZ / CBS News Boston Facebook* account.
The recording, published three years ago, does not contain an excerpt with Zelensky, and its duration differs from the timing of the viral video by about 20 seconds. In the original story, King Hall talks about the British startup StandardToilet, whose representatives claimedthat people spend 25% more time in office toilets than necessary, because they are not just sitting in the toilet, but also on social networks with instant messengers. The company's downward-sloping toilet is designed to make it more difficult to spend long periods of time on the toilet, which in theory should save employers time and money. Accordingly, images of such toilets were shown on air, and it was while talking about this idea that the presenter began to burst into laughter.
The video of Zelensky used in the viral video was taken during his trip to the Bakhmut area and published in the official Telegram account of the Ukrainian president on March 22, 2023. So there is no way that a video recorded more than three years later could have appeared on an American television channel, either by accident or on purpose.
In addition, the falsifications were not limited to just adding an excerpt with Zelensky. The authors of the fake recording (apparently to make it difficult to find the original) also changed the name of the TV channel WBZ on VBN. There is also a noticeable difference in the fonts used in the inscriptions “studio” and “New York Stock Exchange”.
The earliest appearance of the fake “Verified” video was discovered in the Telegram channel “Before anyone else. Well almost. Special Operation" (12,000 views), where is it published March 28, 2023 at 10:31 Moscow time. This channel repeatedly distributed false information and became the “hero” of our analyses.
This type of fake news about Zelensky accidentally or deliberately appearing in the most inappropriate fragments of American news programs, after which the hosts start laughing, is not new. We have already refuted viral reports that the Ukrainian president’s speeches were accidentally shown instead of audio recordings black hole and instead of a video with barking dog.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified” / social networks
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