|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Claim: An X user, via a video, claimed prostitutes from Nigeria and Ghana got physical over territory control in France.
Verdict: Misleading! The video has been online since 2019, and details from credible news outlets did not establish the ladies’ identities as Nigerians or Ghanaians. Furthermore, the reports revealed the incident occurred in Miami, not France.
Full Text
Recently, there has been a growing trend of digital conflict between South Africans and Nigeria over social and economic matters, ranging from the controversial beauty pageant contest to the irrational booking of private car rides by the citizens of each country, to cripple the economy of the other.
Since the international strife between X users from both countries, social media platforms have been flooded with several posts likely to pollute the information ecosystem.
One of such posts on X is a video showing half-dressed ladies fighting one another on an unidentified road with the claim that they are Nigerian and Ghanaian prostitutes.
The caption reads, “Breaking News: Nigerians and Ghanaians prostitutes fighting over a territory control in France. People with many years of independence are sexual slaves in white men’s countries!”
When DUBAWA examined the video on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, it had already amassed about 820,000 views, 4,113 likes, 1,379 reposts, 1,073 bookmarks, and 346 quotes.
In the post’s comment section, while some of the application’s users questioned the authenticity of the video, others expressed support for it.
“So sad, you left your countries from (the) same continent and (are) now fighting one another,” @Abdullahi135308 stated.
Another user, @Allexia wrote “Nigerians should come and see what their girls are doing and do something about it. Focus on your people and leave South Africans alone.”
Reacting to the post, @Ollawaski2 stated, “There is no evidence that this Nigerians or Ghanaians. This is disinformation by these xenophobic and low-self esteemed South Africans.”
Noticing the huge engagement the post has accrued and the need to set the record straight, DUBAWA decided to investigate it.
Verification
To determine the claim’s veracity, DUBAWA carried out a keyword search, which revealed that the clip had been online for some time.
Using this information, we extracted some of the video’s minimal keyframes and subjected them to a reverse image analysis on Google Lens.
The results linked us to a report by United Kingdom (UK)-based news outlet Metro. The report, which was published on Mar. 19, 2019, carried the headline, “Women in bikinis rip out one another’s hair in Spring Break mass brawl.”
It is worthy of note that the report contains the exact footage referenced by the claimant to insinuate a Nigerian-Ghanain ladies’ faceoff.
According to the outlet, more than a dozen women were filmed fighting in the middle of a Miami street during the 2019 Spring Break.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail also reported a similar story in 2019.
However, none of the news outlets identified the women as Nigerian or Ghanaian.
Conclusion
DUBAWA’s research shows that the viral footage is old but was used to portray a recent tussle between Ghana and Nigeria falsely.
