Thousands of migrants have marched through Central America in the hopes of eventually reaching the United States. At the Guatemala-Mexico border, however, the caravan was met with Mexican police bearing tear gas and riot shields. Users on Facebook began sharing photos claiming to be from the migrant’s conflict with police. Specifically these three photos:
New York Times tech reporter Kevin Roose noted on Twitter that at least one image from the trifecta was taken in 2012.
Tons of misinformation about the caravan floating around. This photo of a bloodied police officer has tens of thousands of shares on a few big FB pages. It was taken in 2012, and has nothing to do with the caravan. pic.twitter.com/CPxPBygbRv
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) October 22, 2018
Of the other two images in the Facebook post, the photo of the policeman on his knees, supporting himself on the curb, comes from 2014. And the second image, of the bloodied cop in a crowd of cops, is from from 2011.
While some photos purporting to be from the caravan march are incorrectly captioned, others are very real.
The Facebook user, to our shock and approval, provides links to each photo used. (One photo, however, is of protests in Honduras “in support of the migrants in the capital city, Tegucigalpa,” according to the BBC, and not of the migrants as the post suggests.)
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