Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Viral video shows a US politician demanding to stop the war in Palestine.
Fact
Old video from 2012 actually shows a US state lawmaker expressing his disappointment over the pension reform bill.
A video allegedly showing a United States politician yelling and venting his anger demanding to end the war in Palestine is going viral on TikTok.
The video surfaces at a time when Israel has been continuing its attack in Gaza despite growing calls for ceasefire as the conflict between Israel and Hamas enters its 30th day. Many unverified videos are being shared online claiming to be from the conflict in the Middle East.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @haribdrlimbu shared a video showing an American politician vehemently saying, “Hands not the American way. These damn bills that come out here all the damn time, come out here at the last second. I’ve got to figure out how to vote for my people! You should be ashamed of yourselves! I’m sick of it!” Text superimposed on the video reads, “Stop the war in Palestine. More than 7000 people including children have been killed in the past two weeks.” The video also shows a collage of images depicting children caught in a conflict.
The video posted on November 1 has garnered 4255 likes, 52 users have shared it and 228 people have commented on it until the time of publishing this article.
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took a key frame from the viral video and conducted a reverse search on it. The search led us to a video, published on the YouTube channel named Illinois Policy, whose frames matched the viral video.
On checking the video, dated June 1 2012, we found that the video frame and the audio from 0.2-minute timestamp onwards exactly matched the viral video. The video title reading ‘Illinois State Rep Mike Bost furious over pension debate’ indicated that the viral video shows an outburst of the US state of Illinois.
Taking a clue from the video title, we conducted a search on Google and found several videos and news articles matching the viral video. Then, we checked a video, dated June 2 2012, published on the YouTube channel named Belleville News-Democrat and found that the video exactly matched the viral video.
The article description read that state Rep. Mike Bost, R-Carbondale, blew his stack over getting bills at the last second and over the power concentrated in the House Speaker.
We also checked an article, dated May 30 2012, published on the Huffington Post online which stated that a Republican Illinois state lawmaker screamed and threw papers into the air while decrying the state’s Democratic-led pension reform bill. The video quote exactly matched the audio heard in the viral video.
Our findings clearly indicate that the viral video shows a 2012 video of US Representative of Illinois state screaming during a debate over pension reform bill.
Conclusion
No, the viral video doesn’t show US a lawmaker screaming demanding to stop the ongoing war in Palestine. The video from 2012 actually shows a US state lawmaker expressing his disappointment over the pension reform bill.
Result: False
Sources
Illinois Policy/YouTube June 1, 2012
Belleville News-Democrat June 2, 2012
Huffington Post May 20, 2012
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
