Former US vice president Joe Biden at the CNN Washington bureau studio in Washington, DC on March 15, 2020. (AFP / Mandel Ngan)

Manipulated footage purporting to show a Pornhub logo during a CNN election broadcast circulates online

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 23, 2020 at 07:00
2 min read
By AFP Singapore

A video that appears to show a notification for adult site Pornhub appearing on a screen during CNN’s live coverage of the 2020 US election has been viewed tens of thousands of times on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. The video, however, has been digitally manipulated; original footage of the broadcast does not feature a Pornhub logo.

The video was published here on Instagram on November 6, 2020.

The 11-second video shows two CNN anchors, John King and Wolf Blitzer, talking about the 2020 US Presidential election. A notification for Pornhub then appears on a screen behind King, which he appears to swipe away within seconds.

Text superimposed on the video reads: “CNN had Pornhub open ?”.

CNN refers to Cable News Network, a US-based 24-hour cable news channel.

Screenshot of the misleading Instagram post taken on November 13, 2020

The video was also shared on Facebook here, here and here; on Twitter here; Instagram here; and YouTube here and here.

The video, however, has been digitally manipulated.

French journalist Boris Kharlamoff shared the unedited CNN broadcast on Twitter here on November 6, 2020.

It shows King swiping away a predominantly black rectangle from the screen that does not display the Pornhub logo.

❌ Non, aucun onglet Pornhub n’est apparu à l’antenne sur @CNN. Vous pouvez reprendre une activité normale. pic.twitter.com/lLQyyxhNfc
— Boris Kharlamoff (@BorisKharlamoff) November 6, 2020

Below is a screenshot of the video from the misleading Instagram post (L) and the actual CNN broadcast (R):

Screenshot of the video from the misleading Instagram post (L) and the actual broadcast on CNN (R)

The manipulation can be seen clearly in this GIF posted by journalist Julian Röpcke on Twitter on November 6, 2020.

CNN did NOT "have Pornhub open".
It's a fake. pic.twitter.com/JdFmo15i4a
— Julian Röpcke (@JulianRoepcke) November 6, 2020

A keyword search also found this response from King published on his official Twitter account on November 6, 2020.

In response to a Twitter user who asked him whether the incident was real, King replied: “Not. Some clown taking time away from lying about something else apparently because they don’t like math.”

Not. Some clown taking time away from lying about something else apparently because they don’t like math. https://t.co/IcfHQ3gzDQ
— John King (@JohnKingCNN) November 6, 2020