On March 19, Facebook user Tedo Abashidze disseminated the screenshot of an online media outlet on.ge. The screenshot depicts human rights defender Baia Pataraia’s photo and a quote. According to the screenshot, Baia Pataraia submitted a draft law declaring that “rape committed in the dream should be punishable as well”. A few hours later, Facebook users Lukiane Peikrishvili and Tato Dotiashvili published the identical screenshot on their timeline.
Post is presumed to be a satire, however, it is disseminated with the media outlet’s fake screenshot without the respective disclaimer, which might mislead the readers. Baia Pataraia hasn’t made such statement.
Baia Pataraia hasn’t made such a statement about the necessity of punishing sexual assaults committed in a dream. Such quote or any other text given in the screenshot cannot be found on On.ge’s webpage as well.
The color and font of the inscriptions on the disseminated screenshot visually differ from the original webpage.
It’s worth mentioning that user Tato Dotiashvili mentioned the fake nature of the screenshot in one of the comments, however, given the users’ response to the post, the majority of them didn’t understand the satirical nature of the post.
This is not the first time human rights defender Baia Pataraia’s statement was faked on the social network. “Myth Detector” has previously fact-checked similar cases:
- “Blue Soviet Union” falsifies Baia Pataraia’s post
- Presstitution Falsifies Female Activists’ Facebook Posts
- Who is the target of Pataraia’s criticism – Kakhi Kaladze or Aluashvili family?
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