A viral video showing several people entering a store as the doors open is being shared with the claim that it shows a shopping mall in Saudi Arabia “after lifting of lockdown.”
However, The Quint could trace back the video to 2019 when some social media users had claimed that the video shows gathering in a store in Al-Shawqiyah, near Mecca, after it announced discounts.
CLAIM
The claim along with the video reads: “Just see the Saudi Arab Shopping Mall After lifting of Lock Down.”
Several social media users have shared the video on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.
The Quint received a query on the claim made in the video on its WhatsApp helpline.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We divided the video into multiple keyframes and did a reverse search on Google which led us to a tweet shared on 3 December 2019. The tweet shared by Mecca News, when translated in English using Google translate, mentions that the video shows how people gathered in a store when it announced discounts for certain products.
"This is what happened yesterday when a store in Al-Shawqiyah announced discounts for products of 5 riyals, which required the presence of teams from security patrols,” the tweet reads.
We found that several other users had shared the video on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in December 2019.
It is clear that the video is not recent and definitely not related to the lifting of coronavirus lockdown, however, The Quint has not been able to independently verify the exact origin and context of the video.
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