FACT CHECK: Viral Screenshot of article stating CNN praised the Taliban for wearing masks is from a satirical website

With the Taliban taking control of Kabul, Afghanistan, a lot of posts are being made on social media in connection to the happenings there. One such post that is going viral is a screenshot of an article with the headline “CNN Praises Taliban For Wearing Masks During Attack.” The screenshot also has an image of what looks like a  Live CNN news report’s screengrab, with the news organisation’s logo and the breaking news plate saying: “Taliban fighters responsibly wearing masks.”

The screenshot is being widely shared across social media platforms with captions like : “CNN is giving tough competition to NDTV” and “A great news channel CNN CNN International CNN Network 18 or the systematic crook?”

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Fact Crescendo found that the article is actually a satirical piece. Here are the details:

Fact Check Methodology

At first we ran a relevant keyword search to see if any such news report by CNN has been shared on any digital or social media platform recently, but failed to find anything. 

We observed that the screenshot has BabylonBee.com written on it with the date August 14, 2021. We decided to check what BabylonBee.com is. 

We ran a google search with relevant keywords and found that the article is indeed hosted on a website babylonbee.com. On reading, it became clear that it is a satirical article from sentences in it like “Inspired by their example, the Biden Administration has invited the Taliban to the White House to record TikTok videos in hopes of convincing Trump supporters to get vaccinated.”

The Babylon Bee

We then checked out the About Us section of the website and saw that it is indeed a satirical website. The description states “Your Trusted Source for Christian News Satire.” 

Under the question, “What is The Babylon Bee?” the following line has been written, 

“The Babylon Bee is the world’s best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.”

This means that the website publishes only satirical articles.

Conclusion

It is clear from the factcheck that the screenshot is of a satirical article published on a satirical website and CNN has not aired any such news report. Social media users are taking it out of context and the posts are misleading the others.