Fact Check: Thumbnails of videos created by Thulasi Chandu were digitally altered to make False claim
Online harassment and trolling of reporters is a professional hazard these days. Any strong voice that questions
Thulasi Chandu video thumb nail
Online harassment and trolling of reporters is a professional hazard these days. Any strong voice that questions the authority is threatened and harassed. Women journalists especially face hate comments that men will never have to face. Messages about their appearance, gender, and sexuality are put up on all social media platforms in an attempt to silence them. Several journalists are being targeted, claiming they are spreading false news about a particular religion.
Meanwhile, an image that is a collage of thumbnail images of the videos published by a Telugu journalist named Tulasi Chandu is circulating on X platform with the claim that she is spreading anti-national content on YouTube. The first thumbnail shows images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Ayodhya Ram Temple and with a shot of Tulasi Chandu herself with the text “Why Temple?” on it.
The second thumbnail shows a saint from Damagundam, a temple from the place, and Tulasi Chandu with the text “Save Damagundam, Save Temple” on it. The first thumbnail is shared under the heading ‘When we build Temple’ and the second thumbnail is shared with the heading ‘When we build navy base’.
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The thumbnail in circulation is digitally altered.
When we searched the image in circulation using Google reverse image search, we found that the thumbnail used in the viral image was altered.
Tulasi Chandu on her X account shared a post stating that the viral image is a fake one. In her post, she mentioned that the thumbnail she created for a YouTube video has been altered and shared with the wrong context. The caption of the post is “నేను అయోధ్య మీద చేసిన
Taking a cue from this, when we searched the YouTube channel ‘Thulasi Chandu’, we found the original thumbnail showing Ayodhya Ram mandir was shared in her video published on January 23, 2024, with the caption ‘రామ్ మందిర్ పూర్తైంది What Next? || Thulasi Chandu #rammandir #ayodhyarammandir’. When we checked the thumbnail, we found that it did not have the text ‘Why Temple’ on it.
Here is the Thumbnail.
The video ‘Save Damagundam, Save 1200000 trees’, showcases the importance of the Damagundam forest and also the lands belonging to the Ramalingeswara Swamy temple in the forest. There are two parts to this series.
Recently, another instance of spreading fake news against her was witnessed. To implicate that she belongs to Christianity, another digitally altered image was spread on social media. Here is the X post.
Therefore, digitally altered images of thumbnails shared by a Telugu woman journalist on her YouTube channel are shared as a collage to make a false claim.