After Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin'ono was arrested, I noticed two pictures of womxn wearing masks with very different political slogans were doing the rounds on Twitter. So here's my attempt at some image verification, while also amplifying #FreeHopwell

The image on the left was originally posted on July 20, by @zamoepre with the hashtags #ZanuPFMustGo and #PayBackTheMoney. A day later, on July 21, pro Zanu PF accounts started posting the image on the right. The logo is the same, with the addition of the word "ON."

Because the edit is so small, it's difficult to use tools like error level analysis to determine which was manipulated. (This is a good explanation of ELA @KaranKanishk showed me: http://www.errorlevelanalysis.com/#:~:text=Explanation,error%20at%20that%20quality%20level).
ELA of the two images looks very similar.

To compare, this is the ELA of another pic that was circulating on social media. This has pretty obviously been manipulated.

So now what? Luckily I work with people like @maxbrizzuto who told me to zoom into the images. Like, really zoom in. Take a closer look at the letters on the mask. The lettering and the spaces between the letters is uniform, and curves nicely around the face.

Let's have a closer look at the other masks, with the inclusion of the word "ON."

Close up, the additional "ON" looks far less authentic than the other letters on the masks. We can see that the "O" for "ON" was borrowed from the "O" right next to it. It only has shadow on the right side of the letter and in a small corner of the bottom left.

The shading issue shows up a lot more if you look a the mask on the right.

Just looking at the images, it seems pretty clear that the masks with the phrase "ZANU PF MUST GO ON" have been manipulated.

This was a fun exercise with @maxbrizzuto. If you're interested in image verification check out some of the work our colleagues at @DFRLab get up to.