Wrote: Festim Rizanaj
Through a published photo showing Pope Francis making the symbol of a two-headed eagle with his hands, it was claimed that he had saluted the Albanian national football team.
This claim came from several Albanian-language media outlets.
The truth?
The photo of Pope Francis making the two-headed eagle symbol with his hands is old and no longer has anything to do with the Albanian national team.
Links to articles published in several Albanian-language media:
The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, yesterday (June 24) on his official Facebook account published a photo showing Pope Francis making the symbol of the double-headed eagle with his hands. Rama has placed a heart emoticon and two hands in the shape of a double-headed eagle on this photo, without any pretense. (here)
Some media outlets have published this photo of the Pope claiming that he greeted the Albanian national team before the match with Spain.
Parts of the article published by Albanian-language media:
Albania was defeated in the last match of Group B by Spain. The Red and Blacks lost 0-1 to Spain, thus ending their journey to the European Championship.
Albanians 'invaded' the German city of Dusseldorf yesterday, which turned all red and black, while Albanian songs, drums and dances were heard.
But a greeting was not missing from Pope Francis either, who made the symbol of the double-headed eagle with his hands.
What did hibrid.info find regarding the photograph?
After research conducted by hibrid.info, it was found that the photo of Pope Francis making the double-headed eagle symbol with his hands is old and has nothing to do with the claim in question.
This photograph was taken by Associated Press (AP) photojournalist Filippo Monteforte during the Pope's visit to Poland in 2016 and is captioned "Pope Francis meets reporters during his flight to Poland, Wednesday, July 27, 2016 to start a 5-day visit." (here, here)
Analyze:
The claim that Pope Francis greeted the Albanian national team before the match with Spain does not stand because the photo is old.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Unverified Content" and "Disinformation".
Reasoning:
The "Unverified" rating is given to those informative contents that do not provide sufficient information to confirm the claims made in the report, and which could not be verified due to certain circumstances (speed, lack of sources) during the publication of the content.
"Disinformation" is defined as information content that contains a "mix" of inaccurate sources or even half-truthful attributes, and that is created and/or distributed with the deliberate intention of causing harm. The motive behind the producers/distributors of disinformation content lies in achieving a political, financial, psychological or social goal.