New Year celebration videos misrepresented as China demonstrations
- Published on August 19, 2025 at 11:13
- 4 min read
- By Charlotte KWAN, AFP Hong Kong
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The compilation, comprising four clips of huge crowds, was viewed more than 480,000 times after it was shared on Threads on August 6, 2025.
"The Jiangyou incident in Sichuan, China, escalates as protestors force the police to retreat," reads part of the superimposed traditional Chinese text on the compilation, referring to a viral school bullying case in the southwestern city (archived link).
"More than one million people participated in protests, calling for the overthrow of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party regime."
Police said two teenage girls were sent to a correctional school for assaulting and verbally abusing a 14-year-old girl, footage of which was shared online.
Onlookers and a third girl who participated in the abuse were "criticised and educated", the police said, adding that their guardians had been "ordered to exercise strict discipline".
The case drew outrage online from some lamenting the punishment did not go further, and sparked rare protests in the country, where opposition to the ruling Communist Party and anything seen as a threat to the civil order is swiftly quashed.
Footage showed crowds gathered outside the city hall in Jiangyou, with large crowds stretching around the block. Video also showed people being forcibly pulled aside, and police wearing SWAT uniforms subduing at least three people at an intersection with hundreds of bystanders.
Several Taiwanese news organisations included footage from the protests in their reports (archived here, here and here).
But the circulating compilation, which was shared elsewhere on YouTube, TikTok and Facebook, misuses unrelated clips.
Reverse image searches on Google and Baidu using keyframes from the visuals found they all predate the protests in Jiangyou.
Taiwanese fact-checking organisation Taiwan Factcheck Center also previously debunked the false claim the clips show escalating protests in China (archived link).
New Year's celebrations
The first falsely shared clip was previously shared on December 31, 2024 on Douyin, where it included a hashtag for "Hong Kong New Year's Eve Fireworks" (archived link).
The video corresponds to Google Street View imagery of a stretch of Nathan Road -- one of Hong Kong's main thoroughfares (archived link).
The second clip had earlier been shared on January 1, 2024 on Douyin, where its caption said it showed a New Year's countdown celebration in Nanning, China (archived link).
Street imagery from Baidu Maps shows it was filmed near the Nanning Department Store in Xingning District (archived link).
The third clip was posted on December 31, 2024 on Douyin, with the post saying it showed New Year's Eve in Kunming, China (archived link).
Street imagery from Baidu Maps shows the two stores found in the Douyin video in the Nanping Pedestrian Street area (archived link).
Finally, the fourth clip in the compilation depicts a New Year celebration in Guiyang, China (archived link).
The same clip was earlier shared in a Douyin post from January 1, 2025 (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked false claims related to protests in China.
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