This video actually shows a skit by a US comedian

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 24, 2020 at 05:30
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong

A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times in multiple posts on Twitter alongside a claim it shows an international student from Tanzania smashing televisions at a university in China. The claim is false; the video actually shows a skit by a US comedian.

The video was published here on Twitter on June 24, 2020. It has been viewed more than 79,500 times.

Screenshot taken on September 21, 2020, of the misleading tweet

The 29-second clip shows a man throwing television screens and a computer console on the floor of a property.

A watermark, “HUAIBEIREN.COM”, can be seen in the video’s bottom right-hand corner.

The video’s simplified Chinese-language caption translates to English as: “A Tanzanian student studying at Beijing Language Institute smashed the TV while watching a game”.

The same video was also uploaded here, here and here on Twitter, alongside a similar claim.

The claim, however, is false.

A keyword search found a longer version of the video published here on the Facebook page of US comedian Funny Mike, on June 14, 2019.

The video caption reads: “Golden state pissed me off !!! Instagram @FunnyMike”.

A screenshot of the comedian's Facebook post

"Golden state" refers to the Golden State Warriors, a US professional basketball team. On June 13, 2019, one day before Funny Mike uploaded his video on Facebook, the Warriors were defeated by the Toronto Raptors in the 2019 NBA championship.

The video in the misleading Twitter post can be seen from the Facebook video’s 27-second mark.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading tweet (L) and the video on Funny Mike’s Facebook page (R):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading tweet (L) and the video on Funny Mike’s Facebook page (R)

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