The viral photo of Sydney climate strike aftermath is a fake

A fake viral photo posted on social media showing rubbish left after the climate strike in Sydney has been deleted.

rubbish

Source: Facebook

A social media post showing rubbish allegedly left after the climate strike in Sydney has been deleted - after it was revealed to be fake.  

On Friday, 50,000 people took to the streets in Sydney as part of the Global Strike 4 Climate protest calling for action on climate change.

Hours later, a Facebook page called Australian Youth Coal Coalition shared an image claiming to show the litter left behind in Sydney’s Hyde Park after the protest.
aycc
The post from the Australian Youth Coal Coalition went viral. Source: Facebook
It was captioned: “Look at the mess today’s climate protesters left behind in beautiful Hyde Park. So much plastic. So much landfill.”

The photo was shared more than 36,000 times with more than 8500 comments.

But the image turned out to be a fake.

It was not taken this month, or even in Australia.

In Sydney, there was no climate strike in Hyde Park on Friday.
The photo was originally posted in April 2019 and is from an annual cannabis event called 420 held in London.

According to organisers the event was eventually cleaned up by the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion.
The post remained on the Facebook page for about 24 hours before being deleted.


Share
2 min read

Published

Updated

By Lydia Feng


Share this with family and friends


Get SBS News daily and direct to your Inbox

Sign up now for the latest news from Australia and around the world direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to SBS’s terms of service and privacy policy including receiving email updates from SBS.

Download our apps
SBS News
SBS Audio
SBS On Demand

Listen to our podcasts
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News
Interviews and feature reports from SBS News
Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves.
A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability
Get the latest with our News podcasts on your favourite podcast apps.

Watch on SBS
SBS World News

SBS World News

Take a global view with Australia's most comprehensive world news service
Watch the latest news videos from Australia and across the world