5

The following tweet has been making the rounds, purportedly showing the Pornhub Incognito logo appearing during a live CNN broadcast about the US election, and the news anchor appearing to react to it:

https://twitter.com/PatrickSikler/status/1324645655055400961

CNN had Pornhub open 😭😭😭 #Election2020 #Vote2020 #CNNElection pic.twitter.com/46zhaMM5DL

I can't really find any evidence that this happened, though admittedly I haven't really tried too hard yet because searching for "CNN pornhub popup" on Google as expected just returns a lot of porn, and I didn't want to wade through all that during work hours. There's also some analysis in the replies suggesting it was doctored, but the news anchor reaction seems a bit too genuine.

Did CNN show a Pornhub Incognito logo during live TV?

Improve this question
3
  • 4
    It's a fake, not a notable claim. 1) In the screen shot I took from the video, the presenter's screen is slanting slightly but the logo is horizontal. 2) The camera taking the shot isn't quite steady but the logo is, so it appears to wiggle slightly. 3) As the logo is removed, its background slightly overlaps the frame of the video monitor. 4) Of course it looks as though the presenter is pointing to it. Fakes are always designed to fit with the action (no pun intended).
    – Weather Vane
    Nov 6, 2020 at 12:19
  • 1
    @WeatherVane 5) The poster zooms in to the place where the offending logo is going to appear several seconds before it does, and 6) the purported composition doesn't even make sense. A flash of an offending browser window might be believable. This would have to have been a deliberate action by a TV station employee... and 7) wouldn't the presenter know of this incursion and react to it? There was no reaction.
    – John Dvorak
    Nov 6, 2020 at 12:54
  • 10
    @WeatherVane: Saying is not notable because it is fake is begging the question. The question is "Is it fake?" It is widely believed, so it is notable.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Nov 7, 2020 at 6:24

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

No, it didn't. This tweet shows the original unedited video. There was a popup which explains why the news anchor (John King) looked a bit annoyed but it's unclear what the popup was, but definitely not Pornhub.

Original:

enter image description here

Fake:

enter image description here

Also, check out these articles by Snopes and PolitiFact:


Interestingly, Colby Hall, who also fact-checked this in a Mediaite article joked about the possibility of such a thing happening, in a tweet earlier this year:

enter image description here

Improve this answer
4
  • 2
    so, the popup in the original is a sort of black "notepad" type widget they use with each candidate's face in a circle at left, and then the commentators write or "finger paint" numbers. The numbers in the photo look potentially like one number from the hypothetical series {1701,1781,1901, 1987}
    – Yorik
    Nov 10, 2020 at 20:53
  • 2
    First seconds of this video shows a more complete version of the widget fi you want to grab a screencap ( cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/11/06/… )
    – Yorik
    Nov 10, 2020 at 21:01
  • @Yorik Excellent find. The 'finger paint' numbers in the pop-up of the original video/frame however are not legible, what could be the reason for this?
    – Say No To Censorship
    Nov 13, 2020 at 0:05
  • it is a movable widget. the display is a large touch screen, the os is a multi-window environment, and they move them around and off the the sides regularly.
    – Yorik
    Nov 13, 2020 at 15:13

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .