What was claimed
The Express used a photo from before coronavirus lockdown to suggest people in Brighton were breaking social distancing rules.
Our verdict
This is incorrect. Metadata from the photo shows it was taken during lockdown.
This photo of Brighton was taken during the coronavirus lockdown
19 May 2020
A tweet claimed that the Daily Express used an old photo of Brighton and Hove seafront, from before the coronavirus outbreak, on a front-page story about people failing to social distance during lockdown. An image of the tweet has also been shared on Facebook.
However, this claim is incorrect. The photo editor behind the story shared the photo’s metadata and a copy of the file to Twitter to prove it had been taken in April 2020, during the lockdown. The metadata suggests it was taken at 5:53pm on 23 April 2020.
They also shared evidence indicating that several supposed inconsistencies in the photograph—such as the cranes in the background, or the length of shadows— were in fact authentic. A picture from a webcam at a nearby business taken less than an hour later shows what appear to be the same vehicles seen in the photograph in the same position.
Some people commenting on Twitter also suggested the photo had been taken or cropped in a way to make visitors to the seafront seem closer together.
We have written before about how some authentic photos of crowds can still be potentially misleading when using long telephoto lenses, by making the crowds appear denser. In this case, the metadata indicates the picture was taken with an iPhone 11 Pro’s zoom lens, which suggests that effect could play a slight, but limited, role—far less than could be achieved with a professional telephoto lens.
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 false because metadata shows that the photo was taken during lockdown.