Lighthouse Journalism came across a few posts on the social media platform that showed the front page of the TIME magazine. It was claimed along with the cover and the caption that TIME magazine has named the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu as, ‘killer of the year’. Also seen on the cover page was a picture of him standing amidst the human skeletons.
Upon investigating it was found that the viral picture is edited and that TIME’s recently released issue features noted singer Taylor Swift as the person of the year.
Claim:
Twitter user Chay Bowes shared the viral image on his profile.
Other users too are sharing the same image.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by checking the website of TIME magazine. Usually, TIME magazine designates a ‘person of the year’. This year TIME featured Taylor Swift as the ‘person of the year’.
We found the cover of the TIME magazine and also found the behind the scenes of the issue.
The issue was dated, 25 December, 2023.
We then ran the image using a tool named, Forensically. Through its ‘clone detection’, Forensically highlights the regions it thinks might have been copied across using the clone tool copy paste option. And we found a few highlights on the image.
This gave us the hint that the image is edited.
The error level analysis of the image through forensics also suggests that the image is edited.
Conclusion: TIME did not name Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘killer of the year’. Viral image claimed to be on the cover page of the TIME magazine is fake.
