Conspiracy theory falsely links Clooney & Obama to sexual misconduct

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Conspiracy theory falsely links Obama to sexual misconduct

[size=14][size=18]Louis Baudoin-Laarman, AFP USA [size=32][size=32]Facebook[/size][/size] [size=32][size=32]Twitter[/size][/size] [size=32][size=32]Email[/size][/size] Published on Friday 14 August 2020 at 19:44[/size][/size]

Copyright AFP 2017-2020. All rights reserved.

Social media posts tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory suggest that photos show former US president Barack Obama and actor George Clooney abusing a child. This is false; the photographer who took the photos in Italy said he did not see anything suspicious, and other images suggest the girl is Obama’s niece.

“He see he got caught,” claim Facebook posts trying to paint Obama and Clooney as being among the liberal politicians and celebrities whom the widespread conspiracy theory claims are pedophiles.

They include at least three photos of the former US president and the actor on a boat, accompanied by a young looking girl the posts imply is a victim. 

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In one of the images, a red arrow points to Clooney’s hands on his belt while a second points to the head of the girl. In another, the girl is circled in yellow with her arms extending outwards while holding a piece of fabric, leaving some commenters wondering if she is taking off her shirt. 

Some versions of the claim feature a fourth photo of Obama in the Oval Office, a young girl sitting on his lap.

[[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Screenshot of a Facebook post taken on August 13, 2020[/size][/size]

All four photos are real, but social media users are drawing false conclusions about them.

The girl sitting in Obama’s lap is his niece. The photo was taken on December 4, 2015 by official White House photographer Pete Souza, who published the photo on his personal blog with the caption: “The President snuggles with his niece Savita Ng after his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and her family dropped by the Oval Office.”

The photos on the boat were taken in June 2019 on Italy’s Como Lake, when Obama and his family visited Clooney in a mansion there. 

Matteo Bazzi, a photographer for the Italian news agency ANSA, confirmed to AFP via LinkedIn that he took the photos from that angle. Bazzi agreed to look through his photos from that day, and did not spot anything suspicious happening on the boat.

“I was not aware of this gossip,” Bazzi said.

While the photos used in the posts suggest that Clooney and Obama were among men on the boat, other photos show that they were accompanied by Clooney’s wife Amal, Obama’s wife Michelle and their daughters Sasha and Malia, as well as other friends and relatives. 

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One video posted on Instagram by a local newspaper shows all the guests coming back to a hotel, with the young woman preceding all the others. Translated from Italian, the caption reads, “First come the daughters and relatives.” 

Although it is not certain that the girl is Savita Ng, her father Konrad Ng posted photos on Instagram geotagged Lake Como on June 25, 2020, including a video shot from a boat on the lake, suggesting that the family was present.

[[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Screenshot of an Instagram post taken on August 13, 2020[/size]

Ng also posted a photo geotagged in the southern French city of Avignon just days before, where the Obamas were also vacationing prior to Como.

QAnon ties

The first suggestions of foul play appears to have emerged from the now-suspended Twitter account @WinstonCovfefe just days after the Obamas’ Italian vacation in August 2019. Fact-checking website Snopes pointed out that the account was responsible for other hoaxes in the past.

As the photos resurfaced in August 2020, most versions of the hoax featured the hashtag #SaveTheChildren or #SaveOurChildren, while some YouTube videos and tweets provide more explicit information accusing the two men of molesting the child.

Starting in July 2020, the two hashtags were appropriated by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory. QAnon adherents believe that a secret “Deep State” cabal is composed of various liberal personalities including the Clintons, the Obamas, or Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, whom President Donald Trump aims to take down. 

The theory holds that these personalities all secretly engage in perverted pedophilic behaviour, which provides a narrative for the Clooney and Obama photos. 

“What QAnon has done is they folded in several forms of anti-pedophile conspiracy investigations that previously existed online to sort of streamline them for a more mainstream conservative audience,” Brian Friedberg, a researcher at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, told AFP, adding that any theory can be worked into its canon. 

Once a marginal theory, QAnon is moving into the mainstream through politicians, including one who recently won a primary contest in Georgia.

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Viral image
stated on June 1, 2020 in a Facebook post:

[size=37]Photo shows Barack Obama and George Clooney in a compromising situation with a child.
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• CRIME
   
  
  
• FACEBOOK FACT-CHECKS
   
  
  
•  VIRAL IMAGE
  
  

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By Ciara O'RourkeAugust 17, 2020

No, this photo doesn’t show Obama and Clooney acting inappropriately with a child

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

• Barack Obama and George Clooney among others, including their wives and Obama’s daughter, were aboard the boat when this photo was taken and are visible in other shots from this day.
   
  
• The angle of the image being shared on Facebook shows what looks like a child photographed with Obama and Clooney but the suggestion that something abusive is happening is unfounded, and improbable with so many people feet away from them.
  

 

See the sources for this fact-check

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An old photo of former President Barack Obama, the actor George Clooney, and another person on a boat is being presented on Facebook without context, making it subject to intense speculation of some social media users who think something sinister is happening. 

"What was going on then?" one person wrote in an image that’s being shared on Facebook. "Why does it look like Clooney is zipping his pants back up? Why does #Obama look stunned? Who is that very young girl? Let’s RT widely and find out the truth! #pedopredators #EpsteinsBlackBook."

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) 

But the photo doesn’t capture Obama and Clooney at the scene of a crime, along with a young girl. Contrary to the caption, Clooney appears to be briefly touching his stomach, not zipping up his pants. 

FEATURED FACT-CHECK

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Facebook posts
stated on July 31, 2020 in a Facebook post

Scores of politicians and others are on a “list” of sex cases from newly unsealed Ghislaine Maxwell court documents.
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By Tom Kertscher • August 6, 2020


Rather, it shows the men and someone else — we don’t know who — on a boat on Lake Como in Italy with several other people, including Michelle Obama, Amal Clooney, Malia Obama, and other unidentified guests in 2019. 

In photos published by the Daily Mail, different angles of the scene reveal that there are other people nearby but not in view in the image being shared on Facebook. 

Several media outlets covered the boat ride, including USA Today and The Today Show.

We rate this Facebook post False.
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Conspiracy Theorists Seem Perplexed by a Photo of Obama and Clooney. Here’s What It Shows

An innocuous photo of President Obama vacationing with actor George Clooney stirred up questions within the conspiracy community.

• DAN EVON
  

• PUBLISHED 9 JULY 2019
  

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A common tactic among purveyors of misinformation is to hint at lurid or explosive claims by “just asking questions” about otherwise mundane pieces of evidence. Twitter user @WinstonConvefe employed this strategy in July 2019 in posting a photograph of President Obama and actor George Clooney on a boat with a purported child, along with a series of questions suggesting that something nefarious had just occurred:
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@WinstonConvefe asked, “What was going on then? Why does it look like Clooney is zipping his pants back up? Why does #Obama look stunned? Who is the very young girl?”

While it’s possible that this Twitter user was honestly perplexed by the image, the included hashtags, #pedopredators and #EpsteinsBlackBook, made it clear that the actual motive was to suggest that Obama and Clooney were somehow connected to Jeffrey Epstein, a registered sex offender who had recently been to arrested for trafficking minors.

If this Twitter user actually cared about “find(ing) out the truth!,” they could have done so with a modicum of effort.

This photograph was snapped on June 23, 2019, while President Obama and his family were visiting with George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney at the Clooneys’ home near Lake Como, Italy, during their European vacation. It was one of several photographs that were snapped by paparazzi during this trip.

Photographs from this outing were published by several media outlets, including Just Jared, CBS News, USA Today, Harper’s Bazaar, US Magazine, The Hill, and the Daily Mail in articles about the Obamas’ vacation. None of those news outlets indicated anything about the boat ride was suspect:

The Obama family summer vacation has moved from the south of France to Italy’s Lake Como, where the former first family is being hosted by George Clooney at his lakeside mansion.
The Obama family continues to have the best summer vacation ever, as now they’re in Italy and the guests of George Clooney and wife Amal at their Villa Oleandra mansion on Lake Como. 57-year-old former president Barack Obama was seen getting off a boat near the estate along with the 58-year-old actor. They were both wearing suits minus ties instead of casual vacation wear so they meant business of some kind. The Oscar winner was a staunch supporter of Obama during his eight years in office so the two are good friends.

This single image was presented as if it showed Obama and Clooney caught alone on a boat with an underage child in the middle of some nefarious act. However, other images from this boat ride (which were suspiciously excluded by those pushing this claim) show that the vessel was populated with several other people, including First Lady Michelle Obama, Malia and Sasha Obama, Amal Clooney, and other unidentified guests:
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The claim that this photograph shows a “child” is also based on nothing more than one Twitter user’s interpretation of the image. We examined other photographs showing this person and we’re reasonably certain she’s an adult:

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Furthermore, a video showing these passengers leaving the boat posted to the Instagram page of Villa d’Este (Cernobbio) doesn’t feature any children:


The Twitter user sharing this photograph posted a number of questions about the image. We attempt to address all of them below:

What was going on then?
This photograph shows President Obama and George Clooney with an unidentified woman enjoying a boat ride on Lake Como in June 2019. Although not visible in this image, First Lady Michelle Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha Obama, Amal Clooney, and several other people were also on this boat at the time the photograph was taken.

Why does it look like Clooney is zipping his pants back up?
Because his hands are near his belt. While this Twitter user’s mind may have gone straight to pedophilia, it is much more likely that the actor was simply tucking in his shirt, adjusting his belt, or performing some other mundane action.

Why does #Obama look stunned?
Does he really look stunned? This question is based on an unproven assumption. Perhaps Obama noticed a photographer following his boat, or maybe he’s just gazing off into the distance. It’s difficult to discern emotion from nothing more than a single blurry photograph with no context.

Who is the very young girl?
Again, this question is based on an unproven assumption. We examined other photographs and videos from this boat ride and are skeptical that the pictured person was actually a child and not a woman.

Last, it should be noted the source of these “questions” was a Twitter account that had previously shared misinformation. @WinstonConvefe was one of the sources that helped spread a fictitious quote ostensibly uttered by Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris. The account also uses a stock photograph as a profile picture:

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