These photos of Red Guard Halloween costumes have circulated online since 2013

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 4, 2020 at 11:06
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong

Several photos of people dressed as Chinese Red Guards have been shared multiple times in Facebook, Twitter and Weibo posts that claim the customs were donned by Chinese students in New York for Halloween in October 2020. This claim is misleading; they all have circulated online since 2013.

The photos were published on Facebook here on November 2, 2020.

Screenshot captured on November 3, 2020, of the misleading Facebook post

The post’s traditional Chinese caption translates into English as: “Chinese students studying in New York can't even do without Red Guards on Halloween.”

Red Guards refers to a Chinese student organisation from the 1960s that rallied in support of Mao Zedong, then-chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and his Cultural Revolution.

The same photos, as well as other photos showing a group of people in the same costumes, were also shared alongside similar claims in November 2020 on Facebook here, on Twitter here, here and here, and on Weibo here and here.

This claim is misleading.

A reverse image search found that the photos were published by Chinese technology company Sina here on November 2, 2013. Each photo is watermarked with the Weibo account of user 凯Xiao娜.

Below is a screenshot of the photos shared in the misleading posts in 2020 (L) and the photo published in 2013 (R):

creenshot of the photos shared in the misleading posts in 2020 (L) and the photos published in 2013 (R)

The 2013 photos are captioned, in part: “Weibo netizen @凯Xiao娜 posted photos with a claim that: ‘Saw [these] from a friend’s Facebook account. A large group of Red Guards appeared in this year’s New York Halloween parade...So spectacular! [The issue] was even reported by US media.’”

A search of the Weibo account for user 凯Xiao娜 found that the username had been updated to 凯NYC娜 and the original post had been removed.

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

E-mail