No, CNN didn’t praise the Taliban for wearing masks

Some critics of CNN have recently panned how the network has covered the Taliban’s rapid rise to power in Afghanistan — and CNN has pushed back — but an image that some people have been sharing out of context was created in the name of satire.

It looks like a still from a CNN broadcast from Kabul with this chyron: "Taliban fighters responsibly wearing masks." 

One person sharing the image on Instagram wrote: "@cnn is praising how responsible the Taliban is for wearing mask." 

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

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This image was taken from the Babylon Bee, a satire site. While many posts sharing the image show the site’s logo or name, others don’t and are presenting the joke as fact. It’s not. 

We rate claims otherwise False.