Claim: International news outlet, WION, has announced the results of the Presidential Elections in Sri Lanka and has reported that SJB candidate Sajith Premadasa has won the elections.
Fact The announcement is fabricated. WION has confirmed that they have not announced the results of the election.
A TikTok video, which claims that the international news outlet WION has announced the results of the Presidential Elections in Sri Lanka is going viral on social media platforms. The text with the viral image in English reads “Next President Sajith premadasa.”
The image also carried a Sinhala text superimposed on it, that read, “International news media announcement of Sajith Premadasa’s victory” and shows a purported screengrab from a WION news broadcast with the alleged election results.
According to the alleged news broadcast, Ranil Wickremesinghe secured a vote share of 9.61%, Sajith Premadasa garnered 49.78% votes and Anura Kumara Dissanayake won 31.77%.
Fact check/Verification
Given that voting for the Presidential Elections in Sri Lanka is scheduled for 21 September 2024 (two weeks after the TikTok was posted), we were suspicious of the authenticity behind the viral image.
On further research, the Newschecker team came across the TikTok posted by the handle @renurenu8755 (TikTok now deleted) on 10 September 2024. The watermark of the TikTok carried the handle name @gayan.buddhika67.
A reverse image search led us to the official YouTube channel of WION, where we came across a video posted on 28 August 2024, featuring the same anchor in the same clothes with similar images of the presidential candidates in the background, but no numbers were featured. The anchor can be heard discussing the various candidates in the fray but makes no mention of the results or even project possible scenarios.
Newschecker further reached out to the WION team who denied that such a news item was ever broadcasted by them, and confirmed that the viral screengrab is manipulated.
Conclusion
We thus find that this TikTok claiming that WION has announced the winner of the Presidential Election is fabricated.
Result: False
Sources
Self-analysis
Verified YouTube channel of WION
Editorial team of WION
If you would like us to fact-check a claim, give feedback or lodge a complaint, email us at [email protected]. You can also visit the Contact Us page and fill out the form.
