Amid the chaos erupting in Haiti, one story has been gaining particular traction online: the activity of cannibal gangs.

The claim began with a report from the Daily Express in which an anonymous reporter in Haiti messaged a journalist from the paper that “cannibalism is not widespread, but definitely an indication of the worsening situation. It definitely happens on a few occasions.” The article offers no evidence behind this claim other than that the anonymous reporter has “seen images of gang leaders eating people they have killed”, which are not provided.

This story was then recirculated by smaller outlets such as the Daily Star before it reached the Wild West of news reporting — X (formerly Twitter).

X has now been flooded with claims of cannibal gangs taking over Haiti. One video in particular, which appears to show a man eating human flesh, has garnered over 20 million views at the time of writing (viewer discretion advised). It even gained the attention of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who compared the strife in Haiti with his own country’s problems.

Except there’s just one problem: the video is not from Haiti’s current phase of violence. Although it is possible that this incident took place in Haiti, I reverse-image-searched the video and found it posted in a Telegram channel in August 2023, long before this phase of violence began at the end of February.

That’s not the only video doing the rounds either. One popular clip circulating this week features a post stating “Haitians enjoy human meat”, but this is in fact from a Nigerian film set in 2018. Meanwhile, another particularly gruesome video shows a human body turning on a rotisserie, with the following caption: “A ‘cannibal’ gang and its ‘Barbecue’ leader push Haiti into chaos. Fake or Real?” The video is unsurprisingly fake: it originates from a Chinese Halloween party in 2018.

Then there are the popular accounts sharing these videos. Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysia-based commentator with nearly a million followers, has been regularly sharing clips and stories about Haitian cannibalism. Even though he is one of the most fact-checked accounts on X, he has been boosted by the company’s owner, Elon Musk, who replied to Cheong’s tweets that it was the “End of days. This is bleaker than Mad Max.” But when Cheong was pushed on his posts by NBC journalist David Ingram, the X user merely replied that “Haiti has a long, colourful history of cannibalism.”

So for all the videos and stories about alleged cannibalism by Haitian gangs, it ultimately comes down to an anonymous source and an old video. The lack of substantial evidence doesn’t warrant the constant claims currently circulating which are dominant in the narrative surrounding the violence in Haiti on X. We should be wary when we see claims on social media pointing to the contrary.