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| - Fact Check: Morphed picture of US billboard used to take a dig at Kejriwal's 'freebies'
On the occasion of International Women's Day on March 8, a picture of a billboard targeting Kejriwal has gone viral on social media. India Today's AFWA probes the truth.
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India Today Fact Check
The viral picture is morphed. The phrase “Not to Kejriwal” has been added at the end. The original picture of the billboard is from Alabama, United States.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said availability of free electricity and water in the Capital has helped women to run their households efficiently at a time salaries are not increasing but things continue to get costlier.
Amid this, a picture of a billboard targeting Kejriwal has gone viral on social media. The text on the billboard says, “Nothing in this country is free. If you are getting something without paying for it, thank a taxpayer. Not to Kejriwal.”
The caption along with the picture says, “Such a brilliant hoarding. Respect a taxpayer.” Many Facebook users have shared the apparent screenshot, commending the message on the billboard.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the viral picture is morphed. The original billboard picture is from Alabama, United States, and has no mention of Kejriwal.
This picture is quite viral on social media. The archived version of one such post can be seen here.
AFWA probe
Reverse-searching the viral image, we found that last year too, many Facebook users had shared the same image, the only difference being that instead of “Not to Kejriwal”, it said “Not to any political party” on the billboard.
This gave us a clue that the viral picture might be morphed.
We then located the original Twitter post from which the viral screenshot was taken. In this picture posted on January 14, 2019, the billboard text neither ends with “Not to Kejriwal” nor with “Not to any political party”.
Next, we found that Nilesh Shah, Group President and MD of Kotak Mahindra Asset Management, had tweeted the same picture on January 11, 2019. He had captioned it, “This is a poster in South Alabama.” This picture has the text “Actual billboard in South Alabama” superimposed on it. A logo of “alfreemarket.com” is also visible on the image.
With the help of information gathered from Nilesh Shah’s Twitter post, we searched the Internet with keywords such as “Alabama” and “billboard”. This led us to several news reports published in Alabama- based websites such as “Alabama Media Group” and “Yellow Hammer News”.
As per these reports, the original picture was first tweeted by the “Alabama Free Market Alliance” (AFMA). The image was reportedly taken in Monroeville, Alabama.
Comparing the viral picture of the billboard with the original one, it is evident that the two pictures are exactly the same, the only difference being that in the viral picture, the phrase “Not to Kejriwal” has been added.
Thus, it can be concluded that a morphed picture of a billboard in Alabama, United States, is being used to take a dig at Arvind Kejriwal on social media.
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