Tipsheet

CNN Post on X Gets Wrecked by Community Notes

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  August 30, 2023 9:30 AM

A CNN post on X was slapped with a community note on Tuesday for a misleading headline on an international story.

“Two men in Uganda are facing separate charges of ‘aggravated homosexuality,’ an offense punishable by death under the country’s controversial new anti-gay laws,” the summary to its report that bears a similar headline.

Readers have to open the article to see the important details:

Two men in Uganda are facing separate charges of “aggravated homosexuality,” an offense punishable by death under the country’s controversial new anti-gay laws.

A 20-year-old man in the district of Soroti in eastern Uganda was charged on August 18 after he allegedly, “performed unlawful sexual intercourse with one [man] aged 41 with a disability,” Jacqueline Okui, spokesperson for the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions told CNN.

“Aggravated homosexuality,” according to the much-criticized act, involves incest, sex with children, as well as people with disabilities or the elderly. 

The act, signed into law in May, also outlaws gay marriage in Uganda and it punishes same-sex acts with life imprisonment.

It has been decades since Uganda last carried out an execution, but its longtime President Yoweri Museveni had threatened in 2018 to resume state assent for capital punishment. [...]

Another man was charged with “aggravated homosexuality” last month in Jinja district in eastern Uganda for allegedly performing “a sexual act with a child aged 12 of the same sex,” according to Okui. (CNN)

That led to community notes explaining the context.