Old Tiananmen Square footage falsely linked to alleged hack
- Published on May 11, 2026 at 09:51
- Updated on May 11, 2026 at 10:35
- 3 min read
- By Grace MOON, AFP South Korea
Following reports that a hacker had allegedly breached one of China's state-run computers in April 2026, a wave of far-right accounts in South Korea shared a video falsely claiming to show "never-before-seen" footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. The posts alleged the video was leaked in the suspected hack, but an AFP analysis found that most scenes in the clip match existing archival footage -- a finding independently confirmed by a forensic science expert, who also found no signs the video was generated using artificial intelligence.
"Seeing the horrific events at Tiananmen --which the Chinese government tried to cover up -- being exposed, it seems true that the Chinese government was hacked," reads part of the Korean-language X video published on April 26, 2026.
The post shares a two-minute clip depicting crowds running down a street as a row of tanks approaches.
The claim emerged following a reported breach at one of China's supercomputing hubs in the city of Tianjin, first reported by CNN on April 8 (archived link).
Chinese troops and tanks forcibly dispersed peaceful protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, quelling huge, weeks-long demonstrations demanding greater political freedoms (archived link).
The exact toll is unknown but hundreds died, with some estimates putting the figure at more than 1,000 people. China's leaders have since sought to erase any public mention of the crackdown.
AFP found the clip initially spread among Chinese social media users on X, Threads and YouTube, before it was shared by far-right Korean users on X, Threads and Facebook.
However, the false portrayal of the video as recently leaked footage linked to the alleged hack originated from Korean users.
Chun Sang-chin, a professor of sociology at Sogang University, told AFP that "China has become a recurring villain in South Korea's far-right extremist narratives" (archived link).
South Korea has witnessed an onslaught of anti-China disinformation in the aftermath of the pandemic, with right-wing groups at the forefront of spreading false claims about electoral and visa fraud. The conspiracy theories intensified following jailed ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol's failed attempt to impose martial law in December 2024.
But the circulating clip matches existing archived videos, contrary to claims that it was newly leaked after the alleged hack.
Existing footage
A reverse image search using keyframes from the falsely shared clip led to several matching scenes in existing videos.
The clip compiles four separate shots, each of which AFP analysed individually.
The first shot matches footage uploaded by Chinese Television System (CTS) on June 2, 2025 (archived link).
The Taiwanese broadcaster credited the footage to Reuters and described it as "historical protest footage from 1989."
The second and third shots resemble footage from a YouTube video uploaded by The Associated Press (AP) Archive on July 21, 2015 (archived link).
The AP video package, which commemorates the 18th anniversary of the crackdown, described the scene as showing "People's Liberation Army soldiers firing on pro-democracy protesters as they flee" along a road near Tiananmen Square in June 1989.
According to AP's shot list, the following scene shows demonstrators carrying the body of an injured fellow protester.
The same footage was featured in "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" -- a three-hour documentary on the Tiananmen Square massacre, compiled from hundreds of hours of contemporary and historical footage.
The film's production company uploaded the full documentary to YouTube on January 8, 2025 (archived link).
AFP was unable to locate footage matching the fourth shot. The final 15 seconds of the clip show military trucks moving along a road that appears to have been filmed discreetly from a building near the square.
There were no "visible signs" the footage had been manipulated with AI, said Doowon Jeong, an associate professor of forensic sciences at Sungkyunkwan University, who examined the video using specialised algorithmic tools.
Jeong also confirmed that several visuals in the circulating clip correspond to archived footage.
AFP has previously debunked false claims related to Tiananmen Square and protests in Beijing.
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