In September 2024, the mayor of the Greek island of Tilos, Maria Kamma-Aliferi, became embroiled in a controversy surrounding the rescue of more than 100 migrants off the island’s coast. Shortly afterwards, a video began circulating purporting to show Aliferi taking part in the popular television talent show, X Factor. However, AFP’s analysis of the video found that footage was old and the woman was not Aliferi. A spokesperson for her office also denied that the woman in the video was the mayor.
Tilos is home to fewer than 1,000 permanent residents, and is a popular tourism destination in the Dodecanese group of islands in the Aegean Sea. A recent rescue of dozens of migrants and refugees by the port authorities on Tilos led to a clash between the island’s mayor, Maria Kamma-Aliferi, and a tourist, who the mayor claimed had called for the displaced people to be thrown into the sea. The tourist denied this in a Facebook post.
Greek media reported that Aliferi has received threatening messages because of her reaction to the incident.
Shortly afterwards, a video started circulating on social media showing a woman participating in The X Factor music competition on Greece’s ANT1 TV channel, the logo of which can be seen in the upper left corner of the image. This was accompanied by the false claim that the singer was Aliferi.
“The Leftist Activist Mayor of Tilos”, reads the text in this Facebook Reel from September 8, 2024, which has been shared more than 280 times since then. “Maria Kamma-Aliferi,” it writes at the bottom of the video.
Similar posts with the same video were shared by other users on Facebook (here and here) and X (here).
However, the woman in the video is actually named Maria Mahmout, and is not the mayor of Tilos, as AFP confirmed after cross-checking information about her age and name, and contacting the municipality directly.
Video from 2009
The video circulating on social media is a clip from from an old episode (archived here) of the musical talent show The X Factor. At the 00:33 mark in the video, the participant’s details are stated as “Maria Mahmout, age 18”.
The YouTube video was published on October 4, 2009, meaning that the woman would be 33 years old in 2024, allowing for a margin of one year in case the video is from 2008, the first year the music competition was broadcast on Greek television. In this case the woman would be 34 years old.
However, the mayor of Tilos was born in 1970, according to her biography on the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) website (archived here). This means that in 2024 she would be 54 years old — significantly older than Mahmout would be today.
A Google search with keywords “Maria Kamma-Aliferi X Factor” in Greek did not produce any relevant results to prove that she took part in the song contest in 2009. AFP was not able to find recent information about the X Factor contestant, including neither her current whereabouts nor situation.
“The video is of course false,” Jenny Giannopoulou, the mayor’s spokesperson, told AFP in an email on September 10. She explained that internet users found physical similarities between the two individuals and used this “to mock the mayor of Tilos because they didn’t like her reaction to a racist visitor to the island”.
© AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE | 2024 | All rights reserved. Any use of AFP content on this website is subject to the terms of use available on CGU. By accessing and/or using any AFP content available on this website, you agree to be bound by the aforementioned terms of use. Any use of AFP content is under your sole and full responsibility.
Originally published here.
