What was claimed
A video shows a large protest in the UK and features an interview with a man from the crowd complaining about the cost of living, immigration and NHS waiting lists.
Our verdict
The video is fake. Both the audio and video contain a SynthID watermark showing they have been made with AI tools, the footage includes visual glitches and does not match the real geography of London.
A video which appears to show a huge protest and a man giving an interview criticising the cost of living isn’t real—it’s been created with artificial intelligence (AI).
The clip has gathered over three thousand reactions and hundreds of shares on Facebook, and has the caption “Not a politician. Not a journalist. Just a real man from the crowd saying what every working family in this country feels every single day”.
It features an aerial shot of streets filled with people, many holding banners and flags, and the noise of a crowd chanting something indecipherable.
The video then cuts to an interview with a man, apparently standing in front of protesters holding signs, who says: “Honestly, bills are through the roof. Energy, food, everything. And meanwhile, the immigration system is just too open. People are genuinely frustrated; this government has let us down.”
The video caption references 2025, but the clip itself was shared this year on 21 May.
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It was posted a few days after the Unite the Kingdom march and rally in central London, organised by Tommy Robinson—real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon—which took place on 16 May.
But this video isn’t real, and doesn’t show a genuine protest or a moment from the Unite the Kingdom rally, or a real aggrieved member of the public.
Full Fact has established that both the footage and the audio contain SynthID, an invisible watermark added to content created with Google or OpenAI tools.
During the interview, slowing down the footage shows the flags in the background appear to morph into each other and glitch, a clue that the footage was generated with AI.
We couldn’t find any other videos which matched the footage being shared, or examples of it being reported on by credible news sources.
The aerial shot of the protest, which appears to resemble central London, doesn't correspond to a real location along the rally’s publicised route, or in the capital at all.
We’ve previously fact checked other images and videos claiming to be of protests in the UK which also turned out to have been created using AI.
Before sharing content like this that you see on social media, it’s important to consider whether it comes from a verifiable and trustworthy source. Our Full Fact toolkit and guides to spotting AI content can help you do this.
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 a real protest—it’s been created with AI.
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Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.