This photo of Greta Thunberg held by the police has been manipulated. Here’s what else we learned

Claim:

Viral Photograph From April 2024 Accurately Depicts Environmental Activist Greta Thunberg being arrested during a demonstration.

Rating:

Context:

The viral image was created by digitally manipulating an image captured from real video of Thunberg’s arrest.

April 6, 2024, X (formerly Twitter) user @OldRowSwig posted a supposed image by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg alongside American actress Sydney Sweeney. The tweet has received over 6 million views and 44,000 likes as of this writing.

(User X @OldRowSwig)

The next day, April 7, Internet user @Big__TeeJ confirmed that the image of the 21-year-old activist had been “digitally manipulated to inflate the size of her breasts”.

(X user @Big__TeeJ)

The original image was taken from real-life footage of Thunberg being dragged by police during a demonstration in which she and other activists blocked a main road in The Hague to protest fossil fuel subsidies.

Several media outlets, including Reuters, the BBC and the Associated Press, reported the incident. Several unchanged angles can be viewed in each of these videos. We therefore consider the claim about the viral photo to be “false”.

We’ve previously reported on other inaccurate claims about Thunberg, including that she called for “more durable” tanks and weapons of war and that she traveled back in time to save the planet.

Sources:

Greta Thunberg arrested during climate protest in The Hague | BBC News. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z__4F7wFyaU. Accessed April 8, 2024.

Greta Thunberg arrested by police in The Hague. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vchD_u6Pd9Y. Accessed April 8, 2024.

‘https://Twitter.Com/Big__TeeJ/Status/1777102001693757566?t=0B8Y053yR36cEhpuHqwKcw&s=19′. X (formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/Big__TeeJ/status/1777102001693757566?t=0B8Y053yR36cEhpuHqwKcw&s=19. Accessed April 8, 2024.

Police arrest Greta Thunberg during protest in The Hague | REUTERS. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXde_E6oXRc. Accessed April 8, 2024.