FALSE: This is a photo of Pope Francis meeting President Duterte

Agence France-Presse

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

FALSE: This is a photo of Pope Francis meeting President Duterte
A photo of Pope Francis meeting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is manipulated

CLAIM: A photograph that has been shared thousands of times on social media claims to show Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte meeting Pope Francis. The claim is false; a reverse image search found that the picture is a doctored version of a photo showing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2016.

The photo, which has been posted on Facebook here and on Reddit here, purports to show Pope Francis shaking Duterte’s hand.

Below is a screenshot of the post

(Screenshot of Facebook post)

 

The post, when translated to English, says: “This is not being shown by the media because the only thing they know is to criticize. In President Duterte’s state visit to the Vatican Pope Francis talked to him and told him ‘God will save you from your critics’.”

Duterte once called Pope Francis “son of a whore,” but later sent the Pope a letter expressing his “highest esteem and respect.”

RATING: FALSE

The facts: Duterte made plans to visit the Pope and personally apologize for the remark, but subsequently canceled them.

A reverse image search traced the photo in the misleading posts back to this news article that the Associated Press news agency published on August 29, 2016.

The article is about Pope Francis meeting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Below is a screenshot of the article:

(Screenshot of article)

The altered image, which includes Duterte, has been posted on Facebook since September 2018.

The doctored photo and the original both contain these key details: a circular painting in the background, a dark-colored tie and a plant in a white pot on the image’s far right.
Comments such as the one below indicate that some Facebook users believed the doctored photo was real.

This one, when translated to English, says: “I’m really in awe of Pres. Duterte, it’s like handling a plant, you go straight to the root and not to the branches. The president is right that instead of critics, you go straight to the POPE who will say the truth, with advice and blessings even”.

(Screenshot of comment)

The photo has been shared more than 12,000 times by Facebook groups which support Duterte’s allies since it was first posted in September 2018.

(Screenshot of Crowdtangle data)

– Rappler.com

Add a comment

Sort by

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

Summarize this article with AI

How does this make you feel?

Loading
Download the Rappler App!