Old clip of Yangon flash mob protest misrepresented as new anti-junta demonstration

"General Strike Committee, students' unions, and marchers from other townships demonstrated to overthrow the military dictatorship today on July 7 in Pansodan, Yangon," reads part of the Burmese-language caption of a Facebook video shared on July 7, 2025.

The video -- which was viewed more than 1.7 million times -- shows people hurriedly gathering for a street protest, chanting slogans and flashing the Hunger Games-inspired three finger salute popular among pro-democracy protesters.

A banner held up by those at the front of the protest reads, "July 7 keep the spirit and fight" and "Oust the military dictatorship by all means".

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Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on July 23, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The video was also shared in similar Facebook, Instagram and TikTok posts.

It circulated on the anniversary of the bloody 1962 blitz on students protesting against military rule in Yangon University. According to an article published by The Irrawaddy news outlet, eyewitnesses said hundreds were killed (archived link).

Myanmar has been ruled almost continually by the military since 1962, just over a decade since independence from Britain.

A 2021 coup ended a decade of transition from outright military rule, with generals justifying the power grab by alleging fraud in the previous November's elections that democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won in a landslide (archived link).

The coup sparked a civil war that has killed thousands, and left 3.5 million displaced and half the nation in poverty (archived link).

While local media reported that several townships in Myanmar as well as Burmese communities in  South Korea and Thailand commemorated the 1962 student movement, the video circulating online does not show a protest that occurred in Yangon in July 2025 (archived here, here and here).

Yangon protest 2021

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage published four years earlier by local news outlet Mizzima (archived link).

The July 7, 2021 post reads: "'Keep the spirit of July 7 and fight' - Yangon anti-military dictatorship protest march."

"Today also marks the 59th anniversary of the Seventh July Movement, during which the Yangon University Students' Union building was demolished".

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Screenshot comparison of falsely shared clip (left) and the Mizzima video posted on July 7, 2021 (right)

AFP reporters said the protest involved around 100 demonstrators who moved quickly through Yangon before scattering down side streets or jumping into waiting cars about two minutes later (archived link).

Informants had tipped off police to previous flash mob protests and demonstrators had been arrested, read an AFP article from the time.

An AFP video journalist who covered the protest confirmed the circulating video showed the 2021 demonstration. 

"This is reuploaded misinformation to farm engagement," they said.

An AFP photo journalist also said the video showed the 2021 Yangon protest: "This was when flash protests were being organised amidst violent crackdowns targeting anti-coup protestors."

"There were no protests in Yangon on July 7, 2025," they added.

The falsely circulating video also corresponds to a video AFP published of the 2021 demonstration (archived link).

"Around a hundred protesters march in central Yangon to mark the anniversary of the 1962 Yangon university protests during which more than a hundred people died and thousands were arrested in a violent crackdown by the military regime," reads part of the video's description.

AFP has debunked other false claims about Myanmar's military coup and the subsequent unrest.