Claim: DRC President Felix Tshisekedi walks backward after Cabinet meeting
Source: GhanaFact WhatsApp Chatbot
Verdict: Manipulated
Researched by Gifty Danso
GhanaFact, through its WhatsApp chatbot, received a video showing the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, walking backwards out of a cabinet meeting.
Monitoring social media, GhanaFact observed that the video was circulated on other platforms, such as X.
On X, the said video was posted on March 17, 2025, with a French caption that translates to: “TSHISEKEDI’S INCREDIBLE MARCH: The #signs of the end of the #reign. Walking against the current. The sorcerers of Mupompa’s sect deceived Felix Tshisekedi that he would die if he walked in a normal position after the council of ministers meeting. He believes in everything these days, even heresies.”
This fact-check will verify the authenticity of the claim.
Fact-check
Using Google Reverse Image Search, GhanaFact traced the submitted content to a video shared on the official TikTok account of the DRC Presidency on March 1, 2025. The video was showing President Tshisekedi walking into a cabinet meeting that was held on February 28, 2025.
Nowhere in the 3-minute, 57-second clip is Mr. Tshisekedi captured walking with his back from the meeting, as portrayed online by social media users.
Additionally, GhanaFact noted that the video of the president walking backward had been edited with CapCut – a video editing tool developed by ByteDance (the company behind TikTok). CapCut’s editing features can allow users to reverse a video by a simple click.
“If you want to change the feeling of a video, you can reverse it to make simple actions look fascinating or give your footage an unexpected twist. CapCut makes it easy to do this. You can flip any type of video with a single click,” the company stated in an article.
In the case of this claim, the video ended with the CapCut watermark, signifying that it had been edited with the app to reverse the original video.
GhanaFact further submitted the video through the InVID Verification Application. The results showed evidence of deepfake content, with a 99% probability.
“Explanation: The algorithms of the verification plugin find very strong evidence suggesting that this video contains AI manipulated faces,” InVID’s report said.
Fig 1 – Screenshot of InVID’s verdict on the video
When we contacted a colleague fact-checker in the Republic of Congo about whether or not they had seen the said video. Rosie Massengo responded via an exchange on X that the video was a “deep fake.”
Verdict
Therefore, the video is manipulated!
NOTE: This claim was submitted by a user of the GhanaFact chatbot.
