What was claimed
A video shows Muslims blocking a train carriage on the London Underground and frustrating commuters by praying mid-journey.
Our verdict
The video is fake. Visual glitches indicate it has been created with AI, and the way it depicts people praying is inconsistent with real Muslim prayers.
A video being shared online with claims that it shows Muslims praying in a Tube carriage is actually an AI fake.
The clip has been posted on Facebook and X with a caption saying it depicts: “MUSLIMS BLOCKING THE TUBE IN LONDON AND FRUSTRATING COMMUTERS !!!!!.”
In the footage, a group of men appear to be audibly praying on mats along the centre of a London Underground train carriage, with other passengers standing around them. Voices can also be heard saying “we can’t get off”, “can I get to work please”, and “please respect the prayer”.
But this isn’t real footage. We found that the video contains many glitches indicating it was created with artificial intelligence (AI).
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Throughout the clip, faces of people are morphed and distorted, and the hands of some of the men praying are also unnaturally elongated, or have the incorrect number of fingers. Text on a sign or poster behind a woman in the carriage is also jumbled and nonsensical.
There are also inconsistencies with how the people praying are presented. Muslims pray towards Mecca, and would be extremely unlikely to pray facing each other as they are in this viral video.
Additionally, although many London Underground trains, like the S7 stock used on the District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines, have yellow interior poles, and 1992 stock used on the Central line for instance has red poles, we couldn’t find any evidence that any Tube stock has a mix of red and yellow poles, as is shown in the clip.
Videos which are generated by AI and claim to portray real events can persuade people to believe things are true when they are not. This can cause real harm, particularly in crisis situations when reliable information is hard to come by.
Our misinformation toolkit contains tips on how to spot AI-generated content you may come across online.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because this isn't genuine footage of people praying on the London Underground, but a faked video created with AI.
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