Fake videos and conspiracies fuel falsehoods about Los Angeles protests
As
demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids continue in Los Angeles, misleading videos, conspiracies and false claims have spread on social media.
Many of the posts recycle longstanding conspiracy theories, which have often been revived during past episodes of civil unrest. Some posts have made claims that wealthy individuals engineered or financed the protests, and they have racked up millions of views online.
Some posts exaggerate the unrest, using videos of past demonstrations to depict a city overwhelmed by violence. In fact, clashes since the current protests
began Friday have remained largely confined to parts of Los Angeles County.
Here are some of the most widely shared falsehoods and misleading visuals.
Recycled imagery and video game footage
Some politicians, conspiracy theorists and social media users have posted old footage during the protests, falsely describing the clips as current. While Los Angeles has seen some vandalism and property damage in the current protests, the mix of outdated and recent videos has created confusion.
One widely shared
video of vandalized police cars set ablaze, which was posted by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Sunday, was originally from
news coverage of May 2020 protests in response to the death of George Floyd.
On the same day, a
video showing people setting a Jeep on fire was described as undocumented immigrants pouring gasoline over the vehicle in Los Angeles on Saturday. However, the
footage dates back to a street takeover in the city's
Hyde Park neighborhood in March 2024.
The old clips were shared on the same day five
driverless Waymo vehicles were set ablaze during the current protests. But the recycled footage gave the misleading impression that such incidents were more frequent and widespread.
On Sunday, two days before
Marines were ordered to deploy to Los Angeles, old and unrelated footage falsely claimed to show them arriving. One video, which showed Marines
driving to their base hundreds of miles away in San Diego County, was misrepresented as showing them entering Los Angeles.
Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University and social media disinformation researcher, told CBS News said even the smartest social media users have difficulty telling old content from authentic images in fast-moving situations.
"Sometimes that sort of content is spread by people who are doing it purposefully with some kind of agenda, but most often it's spread by people who just didn't understand the context that they saw it in," Linvill said.
Some social media users also posted footage from a video game during the protests, making it appear that there had been a significant military escalation. A
video posted on Sunday was falsely described as showing protesters firing at National Guard jets. In fact, the
footage is from the tactical military simulation video game Arma 3, which has previously been used to spread misinformation.
Inaccurate debunks
Amid the recycled imagery, authentic pictures of National Guard members sleeping on the floor of a federal building in Los Angeles this week were falsely described as old or unauthentic.
The images were initially published by the
San Francisco Chronicle on Monday and republished by California Gov. Gavin Newsom
on X, who said they served as proof that the deployment was poorly planned, and claimed the soldiers were "without fuel, food, water or a place to sleep."
Some social media users said the images were old and depicted soldiers at previous deployments. Grok, X's AI chatbot,
determined the images were likely from Afghanistan in 2021.
However, the images are authentic. Using images published by the U.S. Northern Command and other videos posted to social media, CBS News independently confirmed the images were taken from the loading dock area of the Robert Young Federal Building.
Later, a spokesperson for the U.S. Northern Command confirmed to CBS News that the image was authentic: "The soldiers you saw in the photo were resting as they were not currently on mission and due to the fluid security situation, it was deemed too dangerous for them to travel to better accommodations. The soldiers have ready access to food and water as needed."
People on X have been tagging Grok more often to help verify visuals during these protests with mixed results, according to Isabelle Frances-Wright, the director of technology and society at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an independent think tank that examines disinformation online.
"While AI is muddying the landscape, people are also now turning to AI as their primary source of fact checking," said Wright.
Conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories alleging rich donors orchestrated the protests have also resurfaced, echoing patterns from past demonstrations.
One widely shared claim involved images of stacked bricks, which social media users falsely presented as supplies planted by billionaire George Soros to incite violence. These posts reached millions across multiple platforms.
One poster shared a photo of bricks that they claimed were left near "ICE facilities." However, CBS News found the image was actually taken
from the website of a Malaysian building materials company.
Rumors about pallets of bricks were
also debunked after Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and reemerged in
2021 during Kyle Rittenhouse's trial and
2022 during Roe v. Wade protests.
Linvill said although the types of misinformation around the Los Angeles protests have followed a familiar pattern, people on both the right and the left are more willing to believe something is fake or staged than they used to be. Many people also assumed the photos Newsom posted of National Guard troops were fake, said Linvill, warning of the risks this poses.
"While fake things are very dangerous, it's also dangerous to assume that everything is fake. And I feel like that is becoming more pervasive for people to just dismiss the evidence in front of their eyes," he said.
