Fact check: Image shows 2019 music festival in England, not recent Australia protest

Sudiksha Kochi, USA TODAY
·4 min read

The claim: An image shows an aerial view of an anti-vaccine mandate protest in Australia

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Ottawa, Ontario, in late January after the Canadian government required proof of COVID-19 vaccination for truckers crossing the U.S. border. Colloquially known as the "Freedom Convoy," the demonstration inspired similar movements across the world.

A Facebook post shared Feb. 14 claims to show an aerial view of a recent protest in Australia.

"Canberra, Australia. The freedom convoy is much bigger than expected," reads text in the post, which includes an image that shows large crowds gathered in a field. "Over 1.5 million cars were counted at the rally."

The post generated close to 2,000 interactions in less than a week. But the claim is false, as independent fact-checking organizations have reported.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

An anti-vaccine mandate protest did recently take place in Canberra. But the photo in the post shows a festival in England that took place nearly three years ago.

USA TODAY reached out to social media users who shared the claim for comment.

Image shows festival in England

The image in the Facebook post shows an aerial view of people at the annual Glastonbury Festival, an event featuring dance, music and theater. London-based photographer Aaron Chown told USA TODAY the festival took place in Somerset, a county in southwest England, in summer 2019.

Chown said in an email that he captured the picture, which has been published on stock photo websites like Alamy and PA Images, on June 27, 2019. That was months before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

An anti-vaccine mandate protestor in costume arrives at Exhibition Park in Canberra on Feb. 12, 2022, in Canberra, Australia.
An anti-vaccine mandate protestor in costume arrives at Exhibition Park in Canberra on Feb. 12, 2022, in Canberra, Australia.

The number of attendees at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival was nowhere near the 1.5 million figure in the claim. The attendance was capped at 203,000 people, according to Somerset Live.

In Canberra, there has recently been an anti-vaccine mandate protest – but its attendance is also not estimated at 1.5 million.

Reuters reported Feb. 12 that about 10,000 anti-vaccine mandate protestors had blocked roads and "brought traffic to a standstill" in Australia's capital city. The Canberra Times and ABC News Australia have published images of the ongoing protest.

Fact check: False claim that Ottawa police were told to return fuel seized in truck protests

This isn't the first time misinformation about the "Freedom Convoy" has surfaced on social media. USA TODAY previously debunked claims that Ottawa police were told to return fuel seized in the protests and that a viral photo shows Mennonites joining the demonstration.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that an image shows an aerial view of an anti-vaccine mandate protest in Australia. The photo in the post is an aerial view of the 2019 Glastonbury Festival in southwest England. There has recently been an anti-vaccine mandate protest in Canberra, but its attendance is not estimated at 1.5 million, as the post claims.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Canberra anti-vaccine mandate protest not shown in photo