Footage from 2017 falsely linked to Venezuela election demonstrations

As thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas and other cities in response to President Nicolás Maduro's disputed 2024 reelection victory, social media users are sharing a video they claim shows the protests. This is false; the footage of a street crowded with demonstrators was filmed seven years earlier.

"Venezuela Riots Protestors have completely taken over following election result. Insane footage," says one July 29, 2024, post on X with thousands of interactions.

The same video and claim circulated elsewhere on X, TikTok and YouTube-- including in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic and Russian. 

The clip gained further attention when former Colombian vice president Marta Lucía Ramírez shared it on July 29.

Image
Screenshot from X taken July 31, 2024

Venezuela's electoral council, largely loyal to the president, declared on July 29 that Maduro won another six years in power with 51.2 percent of the vote.

The opposition says its own tally of polling station-level results showed its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a proxy for its popular leader María Corina Machado -- who was blocked from running -- is the rightful winner.

Maduro is under international pressure over the validity of the results, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying there is "overwhelming evidence" that Gonzalez Urrutia won the election.

Machado has called for protests "in every city" in the nation to denounce the disputed reelection.

However, the video being shared online was not taken in the days following the 2024 election but is from 2017.

A keyframe search using the clip revealed that the Argentina-based newspaper La Capital Mar del Plata posted the same video on YouTube on April 20, 2017 (archived here).

Image
Screenshot from X taken August 1, 2024 with elements outlined by AFP
Image
Screenshot from YouTube taken August 1, 2024 with elements outlined by AFP

Several large anti-government protests broke out in Venezuela in April 2017 after the country's Supreme Court effectively dissolved the opposition-aligned legislature and revoked lawmakers' immunity from prosecution. Riot police and pro-Maduro vigilantes met the demonstrators and the protests eventually dispersed after several people died. AFP photographers captured images from those protests, seen below.

Image
Demonstrators protesting against President Nicolás Maduro's government and riot police clash in Caracas on April 8, 2017 (FEDERICO PARRA)
Image
Demonstrators clash with police during a march against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in Caracas on April 19, 2017 (FEDERICO PARRA)

On April 19, 2017, crowds flooded the Francisco Fajardo highway near the Bello Monte neighborhood in the southeast of the capital, as reported by El Diario.

Google Maps street view imagery of the highway shows many of the same buildings and elements as those seen in the protest footage now spreading across social media platforms.

Image
Screenshot from X taken August 1, 2024 with elements outlined by AFP
Image
Screenshot of July 2024 Google Maps imagery taken August 1, 2024 with elements outlined by AFP

In the background of the protest footage, there is a building decorated with banners next to one topped by a billboard.

The building, which is located above a Central Madeirense supermarket, currently sports a different advertisement, but the same advertisement was captured in an April 2017 photo taken by AFP photographer Juan Barreto.

Image
A demonstrator throws a tear gas canister back at the police during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in Caracas on April 19, 2017 (JUAN BARRETO)

The video also shows a yellow building with large windows and a red sign with the inscription "Sabor Venezolano," which is a slogan for Nestlé Savoy chocolate. 

An advanced internet search including the terms "Nestlé Savoy" and "Caracas" reveals a photo of the billboard overlooking the yellow building in the video on the collaborative map website Wikimapia (archived here). The coordinates on the site also correspond to the edge of the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas.

Image
Screenshots from X and Wikimapia taken July 30, 2024

According to journalist and activist Melanio Escobar, the Nestlé Savoy logo was taken down in 2019 (archived link here) and Google Maps Street View imagery taken in July 2024 does not show the sign.

AFP Fact Check has debunked other false claims surrounding the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

Contact us