Old clip of Turkish actor's drama resurfaced to falsely claim he 'helped at quake site'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 22, 2023 at 03:07
2 min read
By Wasi MIRZA, AFP Pakistan

Days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria in February 2023, a video of Turkish actor Burak Ozcivit surfaced on social media with the false claim that it shows him helping victims at the scene of the jolt. In fact, the clip was taken from the Turkish TV drama "Kara Sevda", which aired from 2015 to 2017 and featured Ozcivit as the protagonist.

The video was shared here by a Pakistan-based Twitter account on February 10, 2023.

It has been viewed more than 6,600 times.

"Turkey's famous actor Burak Ozcivit (Osman) is helping his people after the earthquake. And then there are our actors and TV show people who see the country's tough conditions and go on holiday in other countries," the Urdu-language caption reads.

Screenshot of the false post taken on February 21, 2023

Turkey and Syria were devastated by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on February 6 that resulted in more than 44,000 deaths, AFP reported.

Ozcivit and his wife Fahriye Evcen have raised funds and donated equipment for disaster relief efforts, according to CNN Turk.

The post's use of "Osman" refers to the character portrayed by the Turkish actor in the TV drama "Kurulus: Osman", which has gained "immense popularity" in Pakistan.

The video was viewed over 75,000 times in similar posts on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

However, the clip in fact shows scenes from another TV drama series -- "Kara Sevda" -- where Ozcivit portrayed the lead character.

Popular TV drama

A reverse image search on the Russian search engine Yandex and a subsequent keyword search on Google found matching scenes in this video published on YouTube on December 20, 2021.

The clip in the false posts corresponds to the 9:44 mark of the original scene shared on YouTube.

The video's English-language title reads: "Unforgettable 'Mine Accident' Scene | Endless Love Hindi-Urdu Dubbed | Kara Sevda".

Below is a screenshot comparing the video from the misleading posts (left) with the one from the original (right):

Screenshot comparing scenes from the false posts (left) with the original (right)

The same scene can be seen from the 2:30 mark in this video from the US-based Spanish-language television network Univision's UniNovelas, which syndicated the series.

According to its IMDb page, "Kara Sevda" -- or Endless Love -- was a Turkish series that aired from 2015 to 2017 with Ozcivit playing one of the lead characters.

The earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has spawned a wave of misinformation that AFP continues to debunk here.

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