On June 18, a Georgian-language Facebook user disseminated a photo of the President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, the leader of the Alliance of Patriots, Irma Inashvili, and the former Prime Minister of Georgia and the leader of the For Georgia party, Giorgi Gakharia, was disseminated on Facebook, in which Zourabichvili kisses Inashvili on the cheek. The faces of politicians Davit Tarkhan-Mouravi and Emzar Kvitsiani can be seen in the background. The author of the post attaches the following caption to the photo: “Let this be here, maybe someone will remember something. Uniting with the pocket party of the government and fighting the government at the same time?”
The Facebook user spreads a photo fabrication, which was spread on social media in the past as well. In fact, the faces of Salome Zurabishvili, Giorgi Gakharia, Davit Tarkhan-Mouravi, and Emzar Kvitsian have been manually inserted into the photo. In the authentic photo, Irma Inashvili is being kissed by an unknown citizen.
We verified the photo using the face search system Pimeyes. As a result, we tracked down an article published by Ambebi.ge, which was about the unofficial “dress code” of Georgian female politicians. In the article, we found the original version of the viral photo fabrication.
The authentic version of the photo shows that Irma Inashvili is not kissing Salome Zurabishvili, but an unknown citizen. Accordingly, the photo is altered and the images of Giorgi Gakharia, Emzar Kvitsiani, and Davit Tarkhan-Mouravi are also inserted manually.
It should also be noted that on August 29, 2020, Giorgi Vashadze, the leader of “Strategy Agmashenebeli”, published the same photo fabrication on his Facebook page (1;2). Vashadze pointed out that Facebook user Nugzar Metreveli was the first source of the photo, who often publishes posts with similar content – most of the photos published by him are altered and depict representatives of the government and the opposition. Nugzar Metreveli’s post is also dated August 29, 2020.
On August 31, 2020, the President of Georgia, Salome Zourabishvili, responded to the photo fabrication and confirmed its inauthenticity with a Facebook post.
Salome Khurtsilava
Myth Detector Laboratory
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
Read detailed instructions for editing the article.
Read detailed appeal instructions.