CLAIM: Hakainde Hichilema @HHichilema has enabled the placement of anti-Mnangagwa Billboards sponsored by the Zambia American embassy @usembassyzambia
SOURCE: Account on X (formerly Twitter)
VERDICT: False
It has become common to see posts alleging frosty relations between Zimbabwe and Zambia in the past.
These have, however, escalated from the friendly banter over who owns the Victoria Falls, to almost diplomatic tiffs in the past year.
While these discussions mostly appeared following Zimbabwe’s elections in 2023 and the role supposedly played by the Zambian President in the SADC Observation Mission report, these escalated following the Zimbabwean President’s visit to Russia.
Social media has continued to stock the flames. One post read; ‘Ruto is competing with Hichilema and Kagame to be America’s number one lapdog in Africa.
Who do you think is number 1 at the moment?’.
The mainstream media has also waded into the waters here and here.
The latest is a claim on X that ‘Hakainde Hichilema @HHichilema has enabled the placement of anti-Mnangagwa Billboards sponsored by the Zambia American embassy @usembassyzambia’.
The post is accompanied by a billboard with the message; ‘We want Africa to know that there is a one year old child in a Zimbabwean prison. #WorksofED #SADCSummit’.
Manipulation
A simple reverse image search brings a similar image to the one posted as a Zambian billboard, with one glaring difference. The billboard on this picture does not show a Zimbabwean message but a Ghanaian advert of a Food Lovers shop in Accra. A link on the picture takes one to a Ghanaian graphic designer’s page from March 2023.
However, there is a minor detail that does not match this billboard being in Ghana. The traffic on the picture is moving on the left, which excludes this country from being Ghana since Ghana drives on the right.
A further search shows a similar picture in Zambia. But again – with a different billboard. This one shows an advert for Mastercard from Alliance Media.
The surroundings and other billboards all support the possibility of the billboard, indeed, being in Lusaka.
The post on Alliance Media Zambia is undated, but the same picture appears on a Facebook post on 6 December 2022. It also appears with yet another advert August 2022 here.
So could the billboard now be showing the message on the one year old being held in a Zimbabwean prison?
The short answer is no.
While billboard messages change, the probability of the exact same cars and exact same people in the same outfits all being there at the same time in the same positions on four different occasions and dates is nil.
Spotting manipulated images
Pay attention to details: Look for unusual details, like strangely colored objects or warped backgrounds. Manipulating an image can cause subtle distortions in straight lines or patterns, so be on the lookout for those.
Do a reverse image search: This is a quick and easy way to see if the image has appeared online before. If it has, you can see how it was originally used and if it has been altered. You can do a reverse image search by using Google Images.
Consider the source: Where did you find the image? If it’s from a reputable source, it’s less likely to be manipulated.Be extra skeptical of images shared on social media or from unknown websites.
Conclusion
The claim that ‘Hakainde Hichilema @HHichilema has enabled the placement of anti-Mnangagwa Billboards sponsored by the Zambia American embassy @usembassyzambia’ has been rated as false. The picture used has been manipulated. Before it’s manipulation targeting the Zambian President and the US Embassy in Zambia, it had been used more than three times. Fortunately, while the billboard itself can be manipulated, the surroundings will always show that it has been falsified.
