In early 2024, amid news of unrest in the South American country, a fragment of a street television interview with two men dressed as comic book characters went viral on social networks. We checked whether this description of this report is correct.
As reported, in Ecuador, as a result of recent unrest, the situation has worsened so much that the armed Joker and Batman took to the streets of one of the cities. They allegedly even gave an interview to a local TV channel. In the 1-minute video, a man dressed as a supervillain from DC comics and holding a machine gun speaks into a microphone in Spanish. Walking nearby is a man dressed as his archenemy Batman, armed with a pistol.
The news spread widely in the Russian-language segment of Telegram - in particular, through the channels "Ax 18+"(2.4 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "Ax Live"(670,000), "All Seeing Eye Ukraine" (263,000), "Uncle Slava"(176,000), "Nikita Tomilin"(165,000), Stalingulag (147,000) and Voblya (140,000). Unusual rioters in Ecuador were reported by such news sources as the Russian TV channel "360» and Kazakh publications Newtimes And El.kz.
In early 2024, in prisons in six of Ecuador's 24 provinces flared up riots, the leaders of the two largest gangs escaped from prison. On January 9, armed people seized the studio of the state television channel TC during a live broadcast. In different cities, cars were burned on the streets and police officers were kidnapped. The country's President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency, acknowledged the existence of an internal armed conflict and ordered involve the army and national police to neutralize illegal groups.
Against this background, the video began to spread on social networks. On the reporter's microphone in the viral video you can see the logo of the TC television company already mentioned above.
However, on website The TV channel itself has no traces of such a report. At the same time, there is a Spanish-language block in the frame, judging by which the report is called “What was missing: Joker in Guayaquil,” and the program itself is Alerta Roja (“Red Alert”).
Oddly enough, a program with that name really comes out on TC TV channel from 2021. Its host is a journalist. Jose Delgado - in a relaxed manner and with a bit of humor, he talks about the life of ordinary people in Ecuador. Reportage about Joker and Batman in Guayaquil was included in the June 6, 2022 issue.
At the beginning of the plot, Delgado goes to a disadvantaged area of the city, where the Joker has “seized” power on the street. Communicating with a journalist, a man dressed as a comic book villain realistically plays the appropriate role, but at some point he switches to normal speech and introduces himself: the guy’s name is Daniel Auria, he is a showman and, together with his colleagues, performs at parties for children and adults. Auria sadly noted that although his weapons are plastic, Guayaquil’s crime rate is similar to Gotham City.
A story from Delgado’s program became popular in Ecuador and took on a life of its own - for example, in the first half of 2023, a 60-second fragment was published on his blog by a TikToker @elmikyg05. It was this option that, amid the unrest, spread throughout Hispanic social networks with incorrect interpretation. In the Russian-language segment of Telegram, this process began no later than the evening of January 10, 2024, when the video was published in the channel “Night City"
Cover photo: screenshots from social networks
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