Videos of tradesmen supporting van driver told to remove England flag are AI-generated

Videos circulating online appearing to show tradesmen supporting a driver or plumber who was supposedly told to remove an England flag from his van are fake.

One clip shows a convoy of vans shared with the caption: “ONE DRIVER WAS TOLD TO REMOVE HIS FLAG... SO 50 MORE SHOWED UP!”

In another clip, one man appears to be filming tradesmen standing beside vans displaying England flags, and claims that “one local plumber was told to remove the England flag from his van, so 20 tradesmen parked right outside the town hall covered with St George’s flags”.

The videos have been shared thousands of times on Facebook, but visual inconsistencies clearly show that they aren’t real.

Close-ups of the vans’ number plates show visual glitches, which are tell-tale signs of AI-generated content. In both clips, several vans appear to have identical number plates and some letters seem distorted. In one of the clips one of the tradesmen also has a foot which seems blurred or merging into his other leg.

A possible clue that all may not be as it seems is that several of the vans’ number plates have too few characters to match the current UK registration format—two letters and two numbers followed by three letters. On its own this isn't enough to say that the clips are AI-generated, but it is reason to look more closely.

Misinformation can spread fast on social media, so it’s important to check whether an image or video is genuine before sharing. Our misinformation toolkit can help you to become more confident to spot fake content.