Wrote: Endrit Berisha
A Facebook post claimed that the US aircraft carrier "Gerald Ford" and the accompanying fleet have departed for the port of Haifa in Israel.
The publication was made on Facebook by the account named "Izet Laçi".
What does the post in question contain and what is wrong with it?
"The aircraft carrier Gerald Ford and the accompanying fleet are leaving for the port of Haifa. It seems that the threats from Hezbollah are real," says the description of an image used by this Facebook account. And in the photo is the aircraft carrier and the accompanying fleet. But this publication contains untruths.
After verification by hibrid.info, it turns out that the photo is old, while this aircraft carrier has currently returned to its base in Norfolk, Virginia since January.
Link to the post of the "Izet Laçi" account on Facebook:
After verification by hibrid.info, it appears that this photo was taken on June 5, 2023. The British photo agency, "Alamy" had published this photo which he said was during a sailing event on June 5th of last year (see here).
For more information, the website "dvidshub.net", which is owned by the Defense Media Activity (DMA) of the United States Department of Defense and offers multimedia products and services, has published a photo of this aircraft carrier in Norfolk, dated June 18, 2024 (see here).
While the claim is that this aircraft carrier is headed to Israel, the Associated Press news agency wrote on June 19 that it is in the maintenance phase. “The USS Gerald R. Ford has just returned from deployment and has entered the maintenance phase, which is expected to last about a year,” says the part of the AP article dedicated to this aircraft carrier (see hereThe 11 aircraft carriers of the US fleet in this article were divided into four areas: Deployed; preparing for deployment; undergoing repairs and out of service.
And on the official website of this American aircraft carrier, the latest news in the list of publications concerns its return to base in January after its historic deployment (see here). This aircraft carrier has been out of the naval station for eight months. During this period, the aircraft carrier visited ports in Croatia, Greece, Italy, Norway and Turkey. After these, her service was extended for another 76 days after the outbreak of fighting in the Israeli conflict and she operated in the Mediterranean Sea with the aim of preventing escalation and supporting Israel (see here).
Hibrid.info has also used online search engines to search for articles related to the claim that this aircraft carrier is headed to Israel. Such a thing has not been reported in the last month (see here)
Analyze:
The account named "Izet Laçi" on Facebook has published a photo claiming that the American aircraft carrier "Gerald Ford" has departed for Israel. After verification by hibrid.info, it turns out that the photo is old and that the aircraft carrier is currently at its base in the USA.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Disinformation".
Reasoning:
"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.