We came across the following image in posts on X:
The posts allege that the image shows a man being released from Sednaya prison in Syria, where rebel forces recently defeated government forces, forcing the president, Bashar al-Assad, to flee the country.
Reverse image searches revealed that the content had been spread around different social media sites, including on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin.
Sednaya Prison and Secret Sections
Recent news articles revealed that after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, rescue teams were searching Sednaya prison, where hundreds of thousands of political prisoners of the government had been held.
While many of these prisoners had been freed, rescuers were investigating reports from survivors and family members of prisoners that there were secret underground sections of the prison, where detainees may have been trapped.
On 9 December, however, the White Helmets released the following statement on their website:
‘The White Helmets announce the conclusion of search operations for possible remaining detainees in potential undiscovered secret cells and basements within the infamous Sednaya Prison. The search did not uncover any unopened or hidden areas within the facility.’
The White Helmets are also known as the Syrian Civil Defence Force and originated in 2013 as a group of volunteers aiming to provide rescue services for parts of the country affected by bombings by the Syrian regime.
Operating in opposition-held areas of Syria, they have also provided rescue responses following natural disasters, such as during the 2023 earthquakes that devastated parts of Turkey and northwestern Syria.
As the White Helmets are likely to have played a leading role in the search efforts at Sednaya prison, their statement is a credible source of information for concluding that no secret underground sections were found.
Rumours and a Flood of Videos
Regardless of the findings by the White Helmets, we found several videos on X that described secret sections at Sednaya prison being found and prisoners being released from within.
Though some of the videos bear resemblance to the verified images used by credible news organisations, it is not possible to trace the videos to verify their authenticity or check if the video matches the text descriptions in the posts.
In the absence of more credible sources, we find it likely that the White Helmets’ statement best reflects the situation found at Sednaya prison.
Creepy Video from TikTok
While searching for the origin of the image, we came across an X post that alleged the image was a fake generated by AI, and had actually originated on TikTok.
Following the link to TikTok, we found the video from which the image had been taken. The video was listed as having been created on 3 December, a week before the liberation of Sednaya prison. Moreover, there was no mention of Syria in the video description, and the video was listed as ‘creepy’ and AI-generated.
The ‘creepy’ quality of the video appeared to be related to the man holding in his hand a large creature that seemed similar to a spider or insect, along with the claustrophobia-inducing setting. A glance at the creator’s profile also revealed that they had created several similar videos.
As such, we find the claim that this image that the image shows a man being released from secret sections of the Sednaya prison to be false.
This claim was also investigated and found to be false by the Middle East-based factchecking service Misbar.
How Breaking Stories Contribute to Disinformation
While established media outlets are generally considered reliable sources of information, chasing breaking stories without verification can often contribute to the spread of disinformation, especially as corrections often appear at least days later.
CNN, which reported on the rumoured underground sections at Sednaya prison on the ground with reporter Clarissa Ward, came under fire earlier this week for having interviewed a man claiming to be an ordinary citizen who had been imprisoned, but who was in fact a former intelligence officer with the deposed Assad regime.
Ward, who was said to be at the prison looking for US journalist Austin Tice, who had been abducted in 2012, came across a locked cell and a man hiding under a blanket who identified himself as a a rebel fighter from Homs named Adel Gharbal,
The reports were disputed by the Syrian fact-checking organisation Verify-sy, who identified the man as Salama Mohammad Salama, a man who managed a security checkpoint in Homs infamous for its abuses.
Local residents told verify-sy that he had been detained due to a dispute over profit-sharing from extorted funds with a higher-ranking officer.
Verify-sy also found that Salama had participated in military operations in Homs in 2014 and was responsible for having killed civilians, as well as detaining and torturing many young men without cause or under fabricated charges.
The man was handed over to the Syrian Red Crescent, who later reported having handed over the prisoner to relatives in Damascus. His current whereabouts are not known.
While there is no indication that CNN had intentionally deceived its audience, this case clearly displays how chasing a story without verification of key details can contribute to the spread of disinformation in a harmful way.
