Old Video of Man Bringing Down US Flags Falsely Linked to Mamdani’s Victory

Team WebQoof found that the video dated back to November 2023, which predates Mamdani's victory.

Fact-Check | The video is old and is being falsely shared as a recent one.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video of a man ripping down American flags from a street post is being circulated on the internet as a recent incident from New York following Zohran Mamdani's victory in the mayoral elections.

What have users said?: An X (formerly Twitter) user shared the clip with a caption saying, "To teach a lesson to Trump, Americans handed over NY to a jihadi. Muslims in New York tear down American flags amid applause from Muslim crowd. Dark times for New York. Will you hand over power to congress in Bharat?."

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

The above post gained over 1.9 lakh views on the platform. You can view archives of similar such claims here, here, and here.

What are the facts?: The video dates back to November 2023, when pro-Palestine protesters had brought down American flags from a pole. This makes the viral claim misleading.

How did we find that out?: We conducted a reverse image search on the keyframes of the viral video and found similar visuals uploaded on an X handle named 'Joe Roberts'.

• It was shared on 12 November 2023 and its caption said, "Tearing down the American flag on Veterans Day is an offense to everything America stands for. This literally made my stomach turn. This isn’t about Palestinians—it’s hijacking their cause for a culture war..."

News reports: A news report published in Fox News said that service at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan was temporarily suspended after pro-Palestinian protesters flooded the streets of the city.

• Thousands of people marched through the streets to protest Israel's war in Gaza.

• The report further said that one video showed a protester climbing up a street post and tearing down American and United Nations flags amid cheers.

The report was published on 12 November 2023.

(Source: Fox News/Screenshot)

Conclusion: It is evident that the video is old and is being incorrectly linked to Zohran Mamdani's victory in the recent mayoral elections.

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