A photo shows a massive crowd at a recent Florida rally for Donald Trump.
Photo doesn’t show Trump rally in Florida. It was a music festival in Switzerland
If your time is short
• The photo does not show a Trump rally in Florida. It shows Street Parade Zurich, a music festival in Switzerland.
• The photo dates back to 2018.
An image of a massive crowd on the streets is recirculating on social media. Only this time, it’s claimed as a photo of a recent Florida rally for President Donald Trump.
“FLORIDA RALLY today….and the polls say Biden is winning,” reads an Oct. 16 post by Rosa L Moreno-Hilburn.
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Trump did hold a rally in Sanford, Fla., on Oct. 16. But the photo circulating on Facebook is not an image of Florida at all. It’s an image of Zurich, Switzerland, during an annual music festival before the coronavirus pandemic.
Street Parade Zurich is a music event hosted every year in August and brings a crowd of hundreds of thousands on the city’s streets and over the Quaibrücke bridge, captured in the photo. This year’s parade was canceled due to the coronavirus.
Street Parade Zurich President Joel Meier told PolitiFact the photo was taken on Aug. 11, 2018. A higher-resolution version of the image shared on Facebook can be found in Street Parade Zurich’s gallery from its 2018 event. Similar photos of the 2019 parade can also be found online.
Just a couple months ago, in August, Facebook users falsely claimed that the photo captured protests in Berlin against coronavirus restrictions. That viral rumor was widely debunked by PolitiFact, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and WUSA9, a CBS affiliate.
Our ruling
The Facebook post claimed that a photo showed massive crowds for a Trump rally in Florida on Oct. 16.
The post used a dated photo of Street Parade Zurich, a music festival, over the city’s Quaibrucke bridge. The photo has existed since 2018.
We rate this claim False.
Our Sources
Facebook post, Oct. 16, 2020
PolitiFact, "Photo doesn’t show COVID-19 protest crowd in Germany. It’s from a techno parade in Switzerland," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
Reuters, "Fact check: Photo shows 2019 music event in Zurich, not coronavirus protest in Berlin," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
NPR, "Trump Holds Florida Rally a Week After COVID-19 Hospital Stay," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
WUSA9, "Verify: Viral photo of parade miscaptioned as COVID-19 protest," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
AFP, "This photo shows a street parade in Switzerland before the COVID-19 pandemic," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
Google Image Search, accessed Oct. 17, 2020
TinEye.com, accessed Oct. 17, 2020
StreetParade.com, "2018," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
StreetParade.com, "A Summer Without Street Parade," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
StreetParade.com, "When & where," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
Google Maps, "Bauschänzli," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
Google Maps, "Quaibrücke," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
StreetParade.com, "History," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
StreetParade.com, "2019," accessed Oct. 17, 2020
