A video shows a police officer beating a man. This recording is currently being distributed on social networks such as Facebook and Telegram – the channel of the emigrated pop singer Michael Wendler also shares it.
The clip is said to have been made at a demonstration against rising energy prices. But is that really true?
The video was not made during a demonstration. A reverse search of individual excerpts from the video shows that it was taken at a soccer game in Hamburg in October 2022. At that time there were fan riots at the second division derby of FC St. Pauli against the Hamburger Sportverein. Investigations were initiated against the federal police officers after the recordings spread on social media at the time.
The recordings in the video are not staged – the context in which the clip is now being distributed again is wrong. The video shows no violence on the fringes of a protest against rising energy prices.
How do we check videos for manipulation in the editorial office? It is important to look at the details. The individual frames of a video often reveal whether a video has been edited. We take a close look at each image and enlarge individual sections. Indications of a fake are, for example: lack of motion blur, unnatural shadows or editing errors. The general rule at stern is: Seriousness before speed. We always double-check facts and material thoroughly before publishing them. For this we work with the cross-editorial “Team Verification” together with RTL, NTV, RTL2, Radio NRW.
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