Watch the video: Sniper with stolen police gun during riots in France – what the clip is all about.
Riots in France: after the death of a youth at the hands of the police, riots broke out across the country.
In connection with the riots, this video of a sniper is spreading on social networks.
It alleges that the man is a protester armed with a stolen police rifle.
The video is viewed, commented on and shared millions of times. But what is the clip all about? Is the video real or a fake?
The video is a fake.
The clip was already posted on Twitter in March 2022 and is not related to the current riots. The clip apparently originally came from the Tiktok video platform.
Originally, the video appears to be a parody of the behavior of some players in the “Call of Duty” video game series.
The case shows how easily old videos can be taken out of context in the context of current events.
A parody clip that has been circulating on social networks for over a year has been turned into a supposedly current video of the riots in France.
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.