Last week social media platforms were populated with controversial claims and disinformation content.
CONTROVERSIES
Controversy over “new regional administrative boundary map”
One of the topics among those claims and counterclaims was regarding a map that is claimed to indicate the new administrative regions of Ethiopia. Facebook was crowded with thismap.
However, the Administrative Boundaries and Identity Issues Commission confuted the claim on its Facebook page. The commission said that “there are no recommendations we proposed on regional boundaries at all.”
Ethiopia has a federal system with 11 language-based regional states and two chartered city administrations. This federal arrangement was laid out in the 1994 constitution in part to correct what was seen as over-centralization under the Dergue regime.
“Tactical retreat” Vs “Driven Out”
This one is another hot controversy of last week that circulated on social and mainstream media. Most pro-Tigrayan pages and media were spreading information about Tigrayan forces’ leaving the areas they occupied in the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, labeling it as “Systematic retreat.”
It is reported that Debretsion Gebremichal, TPLF chairperson, wrote a three-page letter to the United Nations, describing Tigray’s withdrawal from Amhara & Afar back to the border of Tigray is a performed offer, showing readiness for a ceasefire.
On the other hand, pro-government media outlets and the Federal Government Communication service announced that TPLF was driven out from Amhara and Afar regions due to the heroic struggle of the allied Ethiopian forces taking on different fronts over the Tigrayan troops.
DISINFORMATION CONTENTS
False video
A YouTube channel posted a video captioned, “How armed drones helped turn the tide in Ethiopia’s war”.
HaqCheck has interrogated the screenshot taken from the video and learned that the video footage doesn’t show the Ethiopian Air force conducting a drone attack on mountainous areas in the northern part of Ethiopia. The video was published by the channel to support this claim.
A Google reverse image search of the screenshot shows that the video footage was first posted on Aug 31, 2017, on ABC News, with the title “US and allies display military might in direct response to North Korean missile test.”
On ABC News’ article, a photo of the second footage was captured by US Pacific Command USINDOPACOM (United States Indo-Pacific Command) that is in charge of using and integrating United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps forces within the USINDOPACOM area of responsibility (AOR) to achieve U.S. national security objectives while protecting national interests.
Joint military training was undertaken to counter North Korean intermediate-range ballistic missile tests. The U.S. and ROKAF (The Republic of Korean Air Force) aircraft then flew across the Korean peninsula and practiced attack capabilities by releasing live weapons at the Pilsung Range training area.
Even though there are several claims that the Federal Government used armed drones at the battleground, the video footage doesn’t show or prove that the Ethiopian government used armed drones during the war. Therefore HaqCheck rendered the claim FALSE.
Partly False claim
A Facebook page with more than 75 thousand followers posted a link of a news article on Dec 18. The post reported the military engagements and victories claimed to be achieved by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) alongside a statement that the army commanded its troops to ‘continue attacks on ethnic Amharas’ residing in Oromia Regional State in reference to a recent communique as its source.
OLA had also been issuing press statements announcing that some areas in Oromia Regional State are under its control on a website named OLA Communique. On Dec 16, OLA published a communique entitled OLA UPDATE #17 on this website regarding its recent.
HaqCheck looked into the website named OLA communique, in which OLA (Shane) announced its press statements and military engagements, and battlefield victories around different areas in the Oromia Region. Though the statement announced recent battlefield engagement developments of OLA, it doesn’t command the armed group to ‘continue attacks’ or target ethnic Amharas in Oromia or ‘not to attack’ Oromia Regional forces.
HaqCheck cross-checked the claim and the recent communique and rendered the post as PARTLY FALSE.
Recommendations
HaqCheck recommends the public in general and social media users that should be conscious of the origin and intention of any unverified information they read and share with others. This includes disinformation trends and consumers should identify the right pages and sources to understand the intention and credibility of the message they are reading or sharing.
Information disorder increases during a shortage of reliable, trustworthy information. We recommend the government and all public entities allow private media organizations and the public to have full access to information kept behind the curtain.
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HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).
This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.
A Twitter account with more than 13 thousand followers posted a picture on Dec 23 2021 stating that the Ethiopian Government and its allies are committing massacres in Tigray. By the time this article was published the tweet had more than four hundred retweets and two hundred reactions.
However, the image doesn’t show a victim of the Ethiopian war and Haqcheck rendered it as False.
The war between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People Liberation Front(TPLF) marked one year last Nov 2021. After staying in control of Mekelle for seven months, the Federal Government declared a unilateral ceasefire and pulled out its troops from most parts of Tigray at the end of June 2021.
TPLF forces stated that they controlled Mekelle defeating the Federal defense force and would not accept the unilateral ceasefire. Afterward, TPLF had been advancing southward towards the neighboring Amhara and the Afar Regional States and stayed in control of several cities until reports of fresh military offensives and counter-offensives came out.
On Nov 22, PM Abiy Ahmed announced he is joining the war to undertake leadership from the frontlines that followed recapturing of several towns such as Lalibela, Dessie, and Kombolcha by government forces.
From the outset of the war, TPLF officials and some media have been reporting that The Federal Government was attacking civilians using drones while the Federal government stated that the attacks were on military targets not on civilians. Even though the federal government denied the killing of civilians with drone attacks, several videos and images have been circulating on different platforms of social media.
Recently, media outlets affiliated to the TPLF have reported that the Ethiopian government bombarded the town of Alamata and killed and wounded many civilians.
In such a context, Haqcheck came across one of the pictures that claims to show the massacre of civilians by the Federal government and its allies. After examining the picture using reverse image search it is confirmed that the photo was first posted on Dec 19, 2016 reporting a massacre committed by Saudi Arabia.
Hence, HaqCheck can find out that the image doesn’t show a victim of a massacre during the ongoing armed conflict in Tigray. Therefore, it is rated False.
A YouTube channel named African-Insider, with more than 210 thousand subscribers has posted a video captioned, “How armed drones helped turn the tide in Ethiopia’s war” on Dec 13, 2021. By the time this article was published the YouTube video had more than 77 thousand views with more than 200 reactions.
However, HaqCheck has investigated the video footage and rated it as FALSE.
On Dec 20, 2021, TPLF’s spokesperson Getachew Reda said in his tweet that they have completed the withdrawal of their forces from the Amhara and Afar regions. Later On this day, Tigray television reported a breaking news that the Federal Government bombed Maichew and Korem towns killing 18 civilians.
Following TPLF’s announcement of withdrawal, Debretsion Gebremichael sent a letter regarding the current situation of the war to the U.N.Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, proposing an immediate ceasefire to be followed by negotiations.
“I have ordered those units of the Tigray Army that are outside the borders of Tigray within immediate effect,” Debretsion said in his letter.
A prominent TPLF commander General Tsadkan Gebretensae said in an interview with the Newyork times that, “Swarms of drones appeared overhead, striking soldiers and supply convoys. At one time there were 10 drones in the sky, we were an easy target.”
In the same context, different international media including African-Insider are publishing a story in support of the claim that “Foreign drones Tip the balance in Ethiopia’s Civil war.”
HaqCheck has interrogated the screenshot taken from the video and learned that one of the video footage doesn’t show Ethiopian Air forces conducting a drone attack on mountainous areas in the northern part of Ethiopia. The video was published by the channel to support this claim.
A Google reverse image search of the screenshot shows that the video footage was first posted on Aug 31, 2017, on ABC News, with the title “US and allies display military might in direct response to North Korean missile test.”
First Footage
Second Footage
On ABC News’ article, a photo of the second footage was captured by US Pacific Command USINDOPACOM (United States Indo-Pacific Command) that is in charge of using and integrating United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps forces within the USINDOPACOM area of responsibility (AOR) to achieve U.S. national security objectives while protecting national interests.
Joint military training was undertaken to counter North Korean intermediate-range ballistic missile tests. The U.S. and ROKAF (The Republic of Korean Air Force) aircraft then flew across the Korean peninsula and practiced attack capabilities by releasing live weapons at the Pilsung Range training area.
Even though there are several claims that the Federal Gov’t has used armed drones at the battleground, the video footage doesn’t show or prove that the Ethiopian government used armed drones during the war. Therefore HaqCheck rendered the claim FALSE.
A Facebook page with more than 4 million followers posted a link of a news article on Dec 18, stating the military engagements and victories claimed to be achieved by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) alongside a statement that the army commanded its troops to ‘continue attacks on ethnic Amharas’ residing in Oromia Regional State in reference to a recent communique as its source. By the time this article was published the post was shared about one hundred times and had one thousand and five hundred reactions.
However, HaqCheck inspected the news and found it to be PARTLY FALSE.
Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which is called Shane by the federal government of Ethiopia, was a military wing of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) claimed to split independently later on May 1, 2021. OLA is designated as a ‘Terrorist’ organization by the Ethiopian parliament. OLA has also been accused of targeting civilians and committing gross human rights violations, especially in the East Wollega zone of the Oromia Regional State.
Kumsa Diriba aka Jaal Marro, Commander-in-Chief of OLA, denied these accusations stating that any member of the army who is found targeting civilians would be held responsible according to their law in his interview.
In August OLA announced its alliance with the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been fighting the federal government since Nov 2020. OLA had also been issuing press statements announcing some areas in Oromia Regional State under its control on a website named OLA Communique. On Dec 16, OLA published a communique entitled OLA UPDATE #17 on this website regarding its recent military engagements and battlefield victories around different areas in the Oromia Region.
The claim emerged on Facebook in this context asserting that OLA commanded its soldiers, in the communique, to ‘continue the attack on ethnic Amharas’ who live in the Oromia Regional State. The news article also reported that OLA instructed its troops not to attack Oromia Special Police Force except to take their weapons and receive the information they would provide.
HaqCheck looked into the communique recently published by OLA and confirmed that though it announced recent battlefield engagement developments of OLA, it doesn’t command the armed group to ‘continue attacks’ or target ethnic Amharas in Oromia or ‘not to attack’ Oromia Regional forces.
HaqCheck cross-checked the claim and the recent communique and rendered the post as PARTLY FALSE.
This week social media platforms were crowded with controversial claims and counterclaims. One of the topics of those claims and counter-claims was regarding an alleged aerial attack in the town Alamata.
Videos and images have been widely shared on social media with the claim that the Ethiopian government conducted drone attacks in the town of Alamata and many civilians died and were wounded.
Mainstream and social media accounts affiliated with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) shared videos and images with the same claim that the alleged ‘air bombardment in Alamata by the Ethiopian government’ on Dec 16 & 17, 2021 killed 28 people and wounded some more 76 civilians.
A statement was also issued by an entity named ‘Tigray External Affairs Office’ regarding the issue. The statement written in English claimed that the Ethiopian government conducted six rounds of aerial strikes at a marketplace in the town of Alamata.
On the other hand, there were counter-claims that the aerial strikes targeted TPLF troops, not civilians. They blamed TPLF for the alleged attack in Alamata.
Capturing and recapturing areas
Another information disorder during the week was regarding the capturing and recapturing of areas in the conflict zone. There have been many claims of such type from both sides of the belligerents.
In this context, HaqCheck fact-checked a claim posted on social media by one of the TPLF-affiliated news outlets. The Facebook post shared a picture, on Dec 12, claiming that TPLF forces have intercepted the road between Gashena & Lalibela and Kon & Gashena towns. At the moment, the post had got over 6 thousand reactions and over 5 hundred users shared it. HaqCheck also came across another Facebook page that posted a picture stating similar news.
The claim came out amid a report by the Ethiopian government on Dec 11, that it had controlled territories along the main road of Woldia – Mekelle highway. Afterward, on Dec 12, TPLF officials claimed that they had recaptured Gashena and Lalibela and destroyed 80,000 government soldiers.
However, HaqCheck confirmed that the image was previously posted on Aug 28, by different users on Facebook and Twitter, in another context. Hence, the post was rated FALSE.
There were also battlefield victory claims by another group of social media users. Among these was a Facebook post that claimed armed forces led by the Ethiopian government recently controlled the town of Maychew, assisted by fighter aircraft and drones, and blocked the road from Woldia to Korem.
The post used an old image that doesn’t confirm the claim. The image used in the post was previously published on Facebook on May 6, 2021, by the Ethiopian Defence Forces’ verified account.
Secret papers allegedly drafted by a clandestine group called ‘The Squad’
Controversial claims appeared during the week that a secret document prepared by a clandestine group led by Agegnehu Teshager, a former president of Amhara Regional State, and other Gonder-born officials was leaked. The claims were circulating on the social media landscape.
The posts claimed that the secret papers were drafted by Amhara regional officials from Gondar as a roadmap to dominate regional politics.
Recommendations
At times of war and conflict, propaganda warfare is very intensified. Propaganda content circulates in many ways and tactics. Thus, people should be cautious and should question the intention, the source, the actors, and the authenticity of such content before they consume and share it with other fellows.
HaqCheck urges concerned authorities to give up-to-date information regarding ongoing issues. Information disorder and disinformation tend to be unusually high when there is a lack of sufficient up-to-date information.
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HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).
This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.
A Facebook page with 402,925 followers posted a picture, on Dec 12, claiming that TPLF forces have intercepted the road between Gashena & Lalibela and Kon & Gashena towns. By the time this article was published, the post had gotten over 6 thousand reactions and over 5 hundred users shared it. We also came across another Facebook page that posted a picture stating similar news.
HaqCheck looked into the image and rendered it as FALSE.
The war between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray people liberation front marked one year last Nov 2021. At the end of June 2021, following a Request from the provisional government of Tigray, the Federal Government of Ethiopia declared a unilateral ceasefire and pulled out its troops from most parts of Tigray stating It is essential that the planting season ahead should not be disrupted since missing it will bring grave consequences for their livelihoods.
Thereafter, the TPLF forces had been advancing southward towards territories in the Amhara and the Afar Regional States. On Aug 5, 2021, TPLF forces took control of the town of Lalibela in the North Wollo zone of the Amhara Regional State.
Reports of fresh military offensives and counter-offensives have come out recently. On Nov 22, PM Abiy Ahmed announced he is joining the war to undertake leadership from the frontlines that followed recapturing of several towns such as Lalibela, Dessie, and Kombolcha by government forces.
On Dec 11, it was announced that government forces led by the prime minister controlled more strategic towns and cut through the main road of Woldia – Mekelle highway. Afterward, on Dec12, TPLF officials claimed that they had recaptured Gashena and Lalibela and destroyed 80,000 government soldiers.
The claims under discussion were circulating amid this situation.
However, a reverse image search of the image, used in the post above, shows that the image was previously posted Aug 28, by different users on Facebook and Twitter, in another context.
Even though there are unconfirmed claims about TPLF’s readvancement to some towns HaqCheck has confirmed that the image doesn’t show a recent incident therefore rated it as FALSE.
The tendency of using false and photoshopped images to support claims had continued last week. HaqCheck fact-checked a claim that used a photoshopped false image to prove a claim. A Facebook post appeared on Dec 11 sharing an image along with a claim that TPLF forces robbed properties and transported them with vehicles.
The post was made amid unconfirmed reports of robberies and vandalism by TPLF forces in Amhara and Afar Regional States. The image shared along with the Facebook post was photoshopped and manipulated as if the license plate of the pickup vehicle is from Tigray. It had received over 240 reactions and more than 50 accounts shared it.
However, according to HaqCheck’s investigation, the image was learned to be taken from another previous publication and doesn’t support the claim that TPLF forces transported properties they robbed from Afar and Amhara. The image was first published on the Internet by a website along with an article that explains traffic accidents during Christmas in South Africa.
Original image
Photoshopped image
False videos
Another social media disinformation trend last week was the use of false videos along with claims.
The first video-related claim was that Martin Plaut, a British journalist who is highly engaged in Ethiopian and Eritrean politics, was recently pelted with a milkshake by an Eritrean. Some Facebook posts emerged with the same claim that the journalist was harassed with a bucketful of milkshake and wastewater. The posts were viral and many had shared them on their respective walls.
HaqCheck, however, investigated the Facebook posts and confirmed that the claim is FALSE. The video posted by both Facebook pages doesn’t show Martin Plaut recently being splashed with a milkshake in harassment. The video clip was taken from a source dating back three years ago. On Nov 30, 2018, Martin PlautPlaut was splashed with a bucketful of milkshake by a man called Yakob Gabriel. The video that shows the happening was posted on YouTube a day later on Dec 1, 2018. These two recent Facebook posts took the video from three years ago and claimed that the video was an account of a recent incident.
Disinformation without explicit claim
HaqCheck observed last week that a new technique of disinformation dissemination is trending. Fake videos circulated without explicit claims and text.
Last week video clips of the same kind were released by various accounts and different social media platforms. The video clips show a drone attack during a war that was actually taken in the Nagorno Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia a year ago. The video was edited with Ethiopian songs embedded with implicit and sarcastic phrases. This is somewhat a clever way of dis-informing social media users by posing the video as if it shows TPLF forces being attacked with military drones.
The video is found to be recorded a year ago and it is from the war between the two neighboring Eastern European countries, Armenia and Azerbaijan. At the time, there were reports that Azerbaijan employed military drones it acquired from Turkey against Armenian forces.
Misleading news headline
HaqCheck observed various news outlets making misleading headlines when they try to come up with sharper angles to their news articles. As part of this, HaqCheck fact-checked a claim with a misleading headline. The headline of the news article shared on Facebook says that Eritrea and Ethiopia respectively became the first and the second from Africa with the number of journalists they arrested. The news article used recent data from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as a reference.
The content of the article states that Eritrea and Ethiopia respectively become the first and the second countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by detaining journalists. There is a big difference between the headline and the content of the news article. Sab-Sahara is a region that is found south of the Saharan desert and the region doesn’t include Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
Therefore, HaqCheck investigated the underlying fact and rated it as MISLEADING HEADLINE.
Recommendations
Social media users should be very careful of the content they consume on social media platforms. Many false and misleading spectrums of information circulate on social media with different tactics intended to deceive users. Thus, they should look for the original sources of the videos, images, or numerical information they find on their respective social media news feeds. They should also try to understand the motive and intention of social media posts and the people behind the posts.
News outlets should refrain from making misleading headlines. As the media literacy in the country is low, using misleading headlines and overstated news angles can mislead many social media users. Therefore, news outlets should use accurate and vivid headlines to articles so that people can easily and correctly understand the crux of the news article.
Social media influencers should be responsible while producing social media content. They should not make false and violence-invoking content. Rather, they need to responsibly nurture their respective audience with accurate information.
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HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).
This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.
Martin Plaut, a well-known South African-British journalist was recently pelted with a milkshake by an Eritrean, a viral social media post claimed on Dec 4, 2021.
The Facebook post that reads Martin Plaut was harassed with a milkshake splashed on him with an intent to humiliate the journalist, invites social media users to go to a Telegram channel to watch the video of the incident. The link embedded in the Facebook post leads to a video clip on the Telegram channel.
Another claim was made on Facebook on Dec 6 that Martin Plaut was recently pelted with a bucketful of wastewater.
HaqCheck, however, investigated the Facebook posts and has confirmed that the claim is FALSE.
Martin Plaut is a renowned South African-British journalist and academician. He specializes in the Horn of Africa and South Africa and is a well-known critic of the Eritrean government. He wrote many articles on Eritrea and a book titled ‘Understanding Eritrea: Inside Africa’s Most Repressive State’.
Since the eruption of the armed conflict between the Ethiopian government and TPLF forces, Plaut has been publishing a number of articles criticizing the Ethiopian government led by Abiy Ahmed.
Ethiopian state-affiliated media outlets have accused Martin Plaut of fabricating and spreading false information against the Ethiopian government. On Apr 10, 2021, Ethiopian Press Agency posted a video of Plaut on its Facebook account stating that the journalist was ‘caught while lecturing on how to fabricate fake news.’ In another report, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation said that Martin Plaut was ‘spreading false information on his Twitter account.
It is in such a context the Facebook post emerged claiming that Martin Plaut was recently splashed with a bucketful of milkshake by an Eritrean. The post was shared over 49 times and the video clip was viewed by close to twelve thousand accounts on Telegram.
The second video that claimed a bucketful of wastewater was recently thrown over the journalist, had been shared over ten times and watched by close to three hundred accounts on Facebook.
However, the video posted by both Facebook pages doesn’t show Martin Plaut recently being splashed with a milkshake in harassment. The video clip was taken from a source three years ago. On Nov 30, 2018, Martin PlautPlaut was splashed with a bucketful of milkshake by a man called Yakob Gabriel. The video that shows the happening was posted on YouTube a day later on Dec 1, 2018. These two recent Facebook posts took the video from three years ago and claimed that the video was an account of a recent incident.
Somaliland supporting Ethiopian military operations on TPLF forces
One of the controversies last week was regarding the stance of Somaliland on the ongoing armed conflict in Ethiopia.
Fana Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) reported that President of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi affirmed, during the visit of Somali Regional State President Mustafa Omer, the commitment of his government to the struggle Ethiopia has declared to quell existential threats it is currently facing. FBC added that Somaliland’s president ‘expressed commitment of his government to the military action Ethiopia is taking in the northern part of the country to defend its sovereignty’.
However, counterclaims appeared on social media that argued the news report by the state-affiliated media, FBC, was false and Somaliland’s President had not expressed any support to the Ethiopian government in its military operations against TPLF forces. One of these social media counterclaims appeared on Twitter and stated that the report was a ‘disinformation and Somaliland believes the armed conflict is a civil war and calls both sides to come together’.
Tekeze Power Dam bombardment
As the armed conflict appeared to be escalating in the last two weeks, claims and counterclaims have been surfacing on the social media landscape. TPLF-affiliated media outlets and social media accounts reported that Tekeze Hydroelectric Dam was bombed by the Ethiopian government. The claim and social media reports have been shared by many.
Later on, the Ethiopian government denied the claim. The Ethiopian Electric Power issued a statement denying the claim that the dam was recently bombed. It added that, a year ago, TPLF forces had also claimed that the dam was bombarded and destroyed by the federal government.
It was a major controversy last week and follow-up video clips and counterclaims emerged. TPLF-affiliated news outlets released a video clip that they say shows the burning dam after being bombarded with aerial attacks by the government in Addis Ababa.
Claims that TPLF forces intentionally set the dam on fire to falsely accuse and defame the Ethiopian government were also part of the controversy.
Image search manipulation
There are reverse image searching tools such as Google reverse image search, Tineye, and others across the Internet. They are helpful and used most of the time to check whether an image was previously published with detailed information to fact-check image-related claims.
However, the tools and the methods have recently been observed to be intentionally manipulated to fabricate false information.
Last week, TPLF-affiliated social media users posted images that show senior civil and military leaders of the TPLF looking at a map claiming that the images were recent and that they were devising a new military strategy.
Counterclaims came up that assert the images are old and not. To support their counterclaims, they posted photo-shopped images that indicate the images were taken from previous posts. They took an old Facebook post screenshot and doctored the new images into it trying to verify to social media users as if the images were taken from older posts.
Two weeks ago similar manipulation was observed when Addis Ababa Police Commission announced it had seized a bulk of ammunition inside the premises of the Orthodox Patriarchate Church and released images. Counterclaimants posted manipulated screenshots to show as if the images were taken from Somalia. The counterclaims posted photoshopped images to disprove the originality of the images that were posted by the city’s police and claimed that they were taken from Somalia. The counterclaim posts were later deleted. However, the counterclaimed images were found to be false and manipulated.
BBC’s misleading headline on the closure of secondary schools Last week, BBC came up with a news article titled, ‘Ethiopia closes schools to boost civil war effort’.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Education announced last week that all secondary schools throughout the country will be closed for a week starting from Dec 6, 2021, so that students can harvest crop fields of those who are on the frontlines.
But the headline of the news article by BBC is somehow misleading and controversial. The content of the article is however accurate as it states that secondary schools are being shut down in order that pupils to collect crops of those who were enlisted in the federal-led armed forces.
Oromia police officers joining OLA
Another controversy during the last week was the claim that members of the Oromia regional special police force were joining the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) whom the government calls Shanne and labeled a terrorist group. A Facebook page with more than 436 thousand followers posted an image on Dec 2, 2021, captioned, “1,287 soldiers were recruited from the Oromia regional forces to join the Oromo Liberation Army.” By the time HaqCheck’s fact-checking article was published, the post had more than 1000 reactions and was shared more than 300 times.
As the engagement between OLA and the regional forces continued, there had been different claims that some members of Oromia Special Forces defected to join OLA. OLA spokesman Odda Tarbii said in his tweet from Nov 4, 2021, “Today, 1,165 Oromia Special Forces defected to the OLA. 400 of them joined OLA forces in the vicinity of Laga Tafo.”
However, the picture was found to be captured from a cadet graduation video of the Oromia regional state special police forces 30th round graduation.
The image-related claim was confirmed as FALSE by HaqCheck though.
Sudanese soldiers near the Ethiopian border
A compilation of images was shared on Nov 30 by a Facebook Page, having more than 435,600 followers and a Twitter Account with more than 1,500 followers, in support of a claim that Sudan has sent numerous troops to the border it shares with Ethiopia. However, HaqCheck has examined the images and rated the post as FALSE.
The Sudanese military on Nov 28 accused Ethiopian forces, for a second time in the past few days, of attacking its forces and civilians near the disputed border.
The Ethiopian government spokesperson Leggese Tullu denied the allegations that the Ethiopian army launched an attack on Sudanese troops, with a justification that “a large group of rebels, bandits, and terrorists have entered (from Sudan), and The Ethiopian National Defence Force and the local militia have eliminated them.”
However, HaqCheck has undertaken a reverse image search of the pictures to learn that the post doesn’t actually prove the claim.
The first image was taken in Dec 2016 while the Sudanese army was exercising in northern Sudan.
The second image was posted a year ago on Apr 10, 2020, on a website article presented in the Chinese language.
The third image was taken 14 years ago by S. Telliks. This photo was published on a website on 24 Nov 2019.
The last photo was published on Nov 21, 2021, on an Arabic website in an article entitled, “The Sudanese armed forces deny the occurrence of armed clashes with Ethiopia”
HaqCheck has analyzed the images and proved that they do not show the claim that “Sudan has sent numerous troops to the border of Ethiopia” and rendered it FALSE.
Captured government troops
A Facebook page with more than 75 thousand followers posted an image on Nov 28. The Amharic caption reads, “Captured prosperity army members at the Kasagita, Afar front, yesterday.” The claim went viral and got over 800 reactions at the moment.
The image was also posted by other pages and news sites in different contexts. However, HaqCheck looked into the image and rated it as FALSE.
A reverse image search of the picture, attached to the post, shows that the image was previously posted by a Facebook page named Tigray Press on Aug 5, 2021.
Recommendations
HaqCheck recommends social media users be conscious of various content on every platform. They should identify the right pages and sources to understand the intention and authenticity of the message they are reading or sharing.
HaqCheck news outlets in support of either of the belligerent groups to offer accurate information to the general public.
We recommend that concerned government and non-government bodies avail timely information. Because information disorder and disinformation tendencies are usually high during a shortage of sufficient up-to-date information.
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HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).
This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.
Last month many foreign media outlets were engaged in the information disorder by misleading reports and using false narration. Different demonstrations and rallies were held, in Ethiopia and around the world, condemning such reporting.
One of the news outlets that published such controversial and false reports regarding the ongoing armed conflict in Ethiopia was CNN. CNN published an article with a headline, “Ethiopian rebels edge closer to Addis Ababa, as fears grow over all-out war.” But another piece published on CNN’s website explains that one of the rebel groups claimed to be 15 miles from the capital, but eyewitnesses reported no sign of the fighters.
In the third paragraph of the article describing the state of Emergency in Ethiopia, it reads,“…requires citizens to carry ID cards that can indicate ethnic origin.”
It’s a misleading statement. Though the government stated that residents must bear identity cards with themselves during the state of emergency, the current resident IDs don’t show the ethnic origin of the holder. Residents’ ID cards being issued and used currently do not indicate either the ethnic origin or birthplace of a person, as asserted by Reuters’ report.
Aljazeera also published a video clip on Facebook with a title that reads, “Thousands of Tigrayans arrested in Ethiopia”. The text along with the video clip explains that thousands of Tigrayans were being detained in Ethiopia as part of a government crackdown on suspected supporters of the rebel forces. It also showed a video of local vigilantes in an unidentified place somewhere in Addis Ababa and stated that they were looking for Tigrayans.
As per the call from the government, it’s now becoming common seeing local vigilantes guarding their neighborhoods and nearby streets. The intended objective of the call is guarding neighborhoods against potential security threats, the vigilantes ask passersby to show their identity cards to identify infiltrators.
The video clip and embedded message were controversial and seen by tens of thousands of viewers on Facebook.
The French state-owned international media outlet, France 24 also published an article with the title “UN to evacuate families from Ethiopia as rebels claim advance on the capital” on Nov 26, 2021.
The article explains that family members of international staff in Ethiopia were ordered to immediately evacuate as TPLF forces claim to be edging closer to the capital Addis Ababa.
It also added, “some TPLF fighters were believed to have reached Debre Sina, roughly 30 kilometers closer to Addis Ababa, diplomats briefed on the security situation said.” It misleadingly claimed that the town of Debre Sina is 30 kilometers from Addis Ababa.
HaqCheck, therefore confirmed that it was MISLEADING, as Debre Sina which is located in the North Shoa zone of the Amhara Regional State, is exactly 190 kilometers far from the Addis Ababa Municipality Mayor Office.
Egyptian magazines and newspapers also took part in the past month’s information disorder regarding Ethiopia.
A post by Egypt Today used a photo in its post from Nov. 8, in which it claimed, “Leader of Oromo People Liberation Front says forces are 40 kilometers away from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.” The Image shows trekking arrayed soldiers, supposedly OLF forces according to the caption of the post.
However, the post was false due to inaccuracies. In the first place, there is no such armed group called ‘Oromo People Liberation Front’. There is an armed group with the name ‘Oromo Liberation Army (OLA)’ that is currently active in the armed conflict in Ethiopia. The group claimed it had taken control of several towns in the western, central, and southern Oromia regions.
Secondly, the image was found to be posted for the first time by Ethiopian Insight on August 10, 2020. The picture was published with a news analysis entitled, “Tigray-federal tit-for-tat threatens trouble”, even before the ongoing war. Therefore, the post was rated as FALSE.
Another Egyptian daily newspaper called Al-Masry Al-Youm published a news report on Nov 23, saying, “Washington pushes three ships near the coast of Ethiopia to help its citizens in case the security situation deteriorates”
A phrase reads in the news, “three ships near the coast of Ethiopia.” Nevertheless, Ethiopia is known to be a landlocked country bordered by Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Somaliland (Somalia) and has no coast. This is the first factual error found in the news at the beginning.
Moreover, HaqCheck interrogated the images used in support of the claim.
A Tineye search of the first image shows that the image was first taken on June 18, 2006, showing US ‘Exercise Valiant Shield 2006’ around the Pacific ocean. The image can be found here.
A Tineye search of the second image shows Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force. The image was taken on Oct 18, 2015 by a Reuters photographer. The image can be found here.
HaqCheck rated the factual error found in the news and the inaccurate images used to support the claim, as FALSE.
False videos
Cannonade in Dessie
There was a claim on social media that the Ethiopian government was using city residents as human shields by firing artillery towards enemy forces from cannons planted at the center of the city. The video was published on Oct 28. The Video’s Amharic description reads, “Abiy Ahmed and Daniel Kibret cannonading in Wollo and Dessie using city residents as a shield with an intention of causing civilian massacre…”.
However, it is learned that the video does not prove the claim. It is neither from Ethiopia nor shows a recent incident in the country. The footage found shows a “Rehearsal for the victory parade 2016” in Novosibirsk, a city in Siberia, southern Russia, on May 9, 2016, dated even before the war began. The post was fact-checked and is rated as False by HaqCheck.
Drone strikes in Wollo
A viral claim by Tigray Television was also fact-checked by HaqCheck last week. The regional TV outlet posted a video footage and claimed that the Ethiopian government conducted aerial drone strikes in Wollo.
The YouTube video had more than 73 thousand views, with more than 1600 reactions. However, HaqCheck analyzed one of the video footage used in the news report and rendered it False.
The video released by Tigray Television used footage was featured in a report by Oromia Media Network (OMN) in support of the news that the Federal Government used drones in its bombing in Wollo.
HaqCheck interrogated the video using a screenshot from the footage and found out that the video was released on Nov 6, 2021, on the official AFP News Agency YouTube channel showing a massive explosion of a petroleum station in Freetown, Sierra Leone. During the incident at least 92 people were dead. According to witnesses, the accident happened when a vehicle in a car accident caught fire. The flames then spread, burning people in cars and on roads nearby.
Covid-19 disinformation social media claim
Covid-19 was declared as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, by the World Health Organization (WHO). Different kinds of claims regarding the Covid-19 Vaccine have been circulating on social media.
On Nov 16, a Facebook post appeared claiming that the Vaccine contains bacteria recommending people not to take the vaccine. The post cautions the audience saying, “Don’t be Vaccinated! The vaccine contains bacteria.” However, any of these claims about the vaccine are learned to be False.
The image was taken from an article with the title “What is Tuberculosis?” on a website called “Tuberculosis foundation.” Furthermore, in an effort to ratify the claim, we spoke to Meskerem, the Secretary of the National task force of vaccine issues, at the Ministry of Health. “The claims are totally false. There are no bacteria in the vaccine,” she explained. Therefore, due to the aforementioned reasons, HaqCheck rated the statement as FALSE.
Controversy over Eleni Gabremedihin and an affiliated CSO
Jeff Pearce, a Canadian author, and freelance journalist released a leaked video that featured a secret online meeting in which celebrated Ethiopians, a representative of the TPLF, and former and current western diplomats were in attendance.
The two-hour and three-minute video was controversial all over social media and the local and state-owned media claimed that the people participating in the meeting are all supporting and working with TPLF.
One of the participants in the virtual meeting was Eleni Gabre Madhn (Ph.D.), a former CEO of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX).
A week before she said that her residential house in Addis Ababa was disrespectfully raided by Police.
Later on, she issued a letter and denied that she supports TPLF forces. In the letter, she affirmed that she doesn’t accept an unconstitutional change of government and recognized the current government as legitimately elected. She asserted that she did not endorse or support any of the views that were presented at the meeting. The virtual meeting was organized by a civil society organization, Peace and Development Center International (PDCI) which is registered in Ethiopia and in the US.
The Ethiopian authority for Civil society organizations on Nov 26 announced that it revoked the license of the organization for violating the laws of the state of emergency which was declared by the Government.
False images
Many social media posts used false images in a bid to support their claims. Here are the claims that used false and misleading images HaqCheck investigated during the last month of November.
Armaments seized by Oromo Liberation Army
One of the viral posts that were fact-checked by HaqCheck last month was a claim that Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), whom the government labeled as Shane, captured armaments from the Ethiopian army.
The claim was confirmed false by HaqCheck’s interrogation of the image. The image was made up of two different pictures. The original image shows a Ural military truck and a cannon. The image can be found in different Facebook posts, from August 6, 2021. Most of the images are posted by TPLF affiliated pages, along with other photos claiming to show captured weapons around Woldiya. However, the image in the post is found to be ‘photoshopped’ from the original picture, by adding up a photo of a group of OLA soldiers over the original picture.
The original image.
OLA advancing to Ethiopia’s capital
A Facebook post emerged last month amid the escalation of the conflict and controversial reports by international media outlets. The post explains that following Kumsa Diriba’s, a.k.a Jaal Marro, commander-in-chief of OLA, order to take control of Addis Ababa, the Oromo Liberation Army is advancing to besiege the city.
Original image.
Photoshopped image.
The post used a false image to support the claim. HaqCheck has confirmed that it is photoshopped, comprising two different pictures. The first image was posted on July 13, 2021, by a non-profit journalistic website platform genevasolutions.news with the title “UN rights body passes resolution on Ethiopia’s Tigray region.”
Oromo Liberation Army advancing to Addis Ababa
A Facebook page, on Nov 11, 2021, posted images in support of its claim that reads, “The Oromo Liberation Army has overtaken the Shoa region in Addis. They are waiting for the troops coming from the north side.” The post is published in Somali language by the page having more than 423,000 followers. The image was false and does not support the claim. It was taken from a previous Facebook post made on Sep 28, 2020. The caption of the original post written in Afaan Oromo implies that the pictures were taken in Jimma city before the current war broke out. Even Though we can’t find the second image, a close examination of similar elements and details (a soldier’s beanie, a necklace artifact, a white mark of the asphalt road, and the darkness in both images) reveals that it was shot at the time the first image was taken. Therefore, the post was rated FALSE.
A second social media post claimed that OLA troops were seen on roads that lead to the capital Addis Ababa. A Facebook page that has more than 423 thousand followers has posted an image on Nov 9, captioned, “Oromia Liberation Army was seen tonight on the roads leading to the gate of Addis.” By the time HaqChek’s article was published, the post had more than 1000 reactions and was shared more than 400 times. However, the images were taken from previously published images by a Twitter account on Aug 23, 2021, in which the tweet claimed that Negele Borana town, 587km from the capital, was partially captured by OLA. Therefore, HaqCheck rendered the post as False.
Captured TPLF infiltrators
A post appeared during the month of November claiming that the two men in the images were arrested while spying and infiltrating by pretending to be disabled persons.
The post was investigated by HaqCheck and confirmed to be false. The images were first shared on Facebook, by the official page of the Hadiya zone Government Communication Affairs Department, three hours prior to the claim. The image was shared on Nov 3 as a news report that two people were arrested in the Hadiya zone, who were deceiving the public by pretending to be disabled.
TPLF and OLA soldiers embracing one another
On Nov 5, 2021, a Facebook post claimed that the embracing armed men in the image are soldiers of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
However, HaqCheck looked into the image and confirmed that the picture in the post does not show OLA and TPLF soldiers hugging one another.
The picture was taken from a previous Facebook post in 2019. The image was first published on Facebook on Feb 23, 2019, without any description. The original post of the image can be accessed here.
Therefore, HaqCheck rated the post as False due to the use of inaccurate images to prove the claim.
A helicopter shot down by TPLF forces
A social media post that shared images on Facebook emerged with a claim that a fighter aircraft of the Ethiopian defence forces was shot down by TPLF forces near the town of Mille, Afar Regional State.
Three viral posts that made a similar claim that TPLF forces took down a fighter helicopter near Mille were interrogated by HaqCheck. The first claim appeared on Nov 11, 2021, on the official Facebook page of TPLF, which has more than 600,000 followers, with a false image that shows a burning helicopter. The post had been shared more than 400 times and received more than 2 thousand reactions within an hour. However, the image was found to be taken from a publication posted four years ago by The Time on Oct. 23, 2016, in an article entitled “I was blown up and trapped by Isis guns”.
A second post with a false image was shared by the Facebook page of the regional TV outlet, Tigray Television, which has more than 504,000 followers. The post claimed that “The Hero Tigray Army took down a military helicopter and burned it this morning at Mille front…” The post had been shared more than 175 times and received more than 1.5 thousand reactions at the time. However, HaqCheck has learned that the image was taken on Sept 9, 2016, and published for the first time on a website with the caption “A Mil Mi-35 attack helicopter during the Caucasus 2016 strategic drills at Opuk range of Russia’s Southern Military District”. HaqCheck rated the two claims FALSE.
A bulk of ammunition seized in Addis Ababa
Another claim that emerged last month was a report that a bulk of ammunition was seized in Addis Ababa during a raid. The Facebook post emerged on Nov 16, sharing two images to support the claim that the ammunition shown in the pictures was recently seized in Addis Ababa. The post has received close to five thousand reactions, over five hundred shares, and more than five hundred comments at the time of HaqCheck’s publication.
However, HaqCheck fact-checked the claim and confirmed that the images in the post do not show a bulk of ammunition recently seized in Addis Ababa during a raid. The images were taken from a previous publication eight months ago. The first image in the post was taken from an article by Fana Broadcasting Corporation Afaan Oromoo page that reported ammunition was seized by the Kombolcha branch of the Ethiopian Customs Commission issued on Apr 15, 2021. The original image can be accessed here.
The second image posted to support the claim was first published in a Facebook post on Apr 16, 2021, with a text explaining that two individuals with over 5,000 ammunition were apprehended in Kombolcha. The original Facebook post can be found here. The post is confirmed FALSE by HaqCheck due to its use of inaccurate images to prove the claim.
Ammunition found inside the headquarters of the Orthodox Church synod
During the month of November, Addis Ababa Police Commission announced that it seized a bulk of ammunition in a warehouse inside the premises of the headquarters of the Orthodox Church synod in Arat Kilo. The police Commission released three images that show a bulk of ammunition.
Later on, counter-claims appeared arguing that the images were false and are taken from previous posts in Somalia or other parts of the world. Most of the counter-claims came from two groups of social media users; the first group seemed defenders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and took the claim by the police as pure defamation against the church. The second group of counter-claims seemed politically motivated and took the claim as a pretext and extension of the ‘ongoing mass arrests against Tigrayans and other dissidents’ to the church.
The counterclaims posted photoshopped images to disprove the originality of the images that were posted by the city’s police and claimed that they were taken from Somalia. The counterclaim posts were later deleted. However, the counterclaim images were found to be false and manipulated.
A day later, the police commission released a short video clip to prove the originality of the images. The controversy subsided later on after the police published the video clip.
Lalibela controlled by government forces
Battlefield claims appeared after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced on Nov 22 that he would go to the battlefronts to directly lead the war from there. A number of related claims regarding the status of the town of Lalibela were fact-checked by HaqCheck. The claims were supported with an image. On Nov 23 and 24 a series of Facebook posts emerged showing an image that depicts an armed man in the uniform of the Amhara Regional Special Police sitting near the Church of ‘Biete Giyorgis’, one of the prominent churches in the town of Lalibela.
However, the image was false and taken from a previous Facebook post on Apr 29, 2021. The image was previously posted by a Facebook account by the name Wubetu Yigezawu. The Amharic caption of the image reads, “The temples of St. Lalibela are being heavily guarded by the Amhara Special Forces”.
HaqCheck, therefore confirmed the image does not prove that Amhara regional forces took control of Lalibela, and the claim is rated FALSE.
Commercial bank of Ethiopia offering prizes
A scam circulating on different social media platforms was a link offering a prize by filling out a required questionnaire and sharing the link at least for 5 public groups or 20 people. The post claimed that the gifts would be presented to potential winners marking the 80th year anniversary of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). The amount of the prize offered after filling out the survey, as it is stated on the sites, is 10 thousand Birr. The site contains the logo of CBE and the branch of the Bank which is found in Djibouti.
HaqCheck has looked into the link using an internet domain finder website called Whois.com and found out that the link was created on Sep 24, 2021, in china with a domain name editjazz.top whereas the correct domain name of the commercial bank of Ethiopia is combanketh.et.
For further confirmation, HaqCheck has contacted the Social Media Manager of the Commercial bank of Ethiopia, Binyam Zewde to confirm the issue. Binyam Zewde told HaqCheck that there is no official 80th Anniversary celebration of the bank. Even though banks prepare a prize program to motivate saving culture among their customers, this is, however, all a scam. Therefore the message circulating on social media is a SCAM.
Recommendations
We recommend social media users be conscious of various content on every platform. They should identify the right pages and sources to understand the intention and credibility of the message they are reading or sharing.
HaqCheck urges international news outlets to be responsible during reporting and take into consideration the sensitive situation in the country and the potential adverse impact such controversial reports would cause.
Information disorder and disinformation tendencies are usually high during a shortage of sufficient up-to-date information. Therefore, concerned government and non-government bodies should avail timely information.
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HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).
This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.
