The beating of a young girl by three teenagers in southwestern China triggered public outrage, but a compilation viewed hundreds of thousands of times online does not show protests escalating into calls for the ouster of President Xi Jinping. The clips in fact show crowds gathering for New Year celebrations\u00a0in several Chinese cities.<\/p>\n
The compilation, comprising four clips of huge crowds, was viewed more than 480,000 times after it was shared on Threads<\/a> on August 6, 2025.<\/p>\n “The Jiangyou incident in Sichuan, China, escalates as protestors force the police to retreat,” reads part of the superimposed traditional Chinese text on the compilation, referring to a viral school bullying case<\/a> in the southwestern city (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n “More than one million people participated in protests, calling for the overthrow of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party regime.”<\/p>\n Screenshot of the false Threads post captured on August 19, 2025, with a red X added by AFP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Police said two teenage girls were sent to a correctional school for assaulting and verbally abusing a 14-year-old girl, footage of which was shared online.<\/p>\n Onlookers and a third girl who participated in the abuse were “criticised and educated”, the police said, adding that their guardians had been “ordered to exercise strict discipline”.<\/p>\n The case drew outrage online from some lamenting the punishment did not go further, and sparked rare protests in the country, where opposition to the ruling Communist Party and anything seen as a threat to the civil order is swiftly quashed.<\/p>\n Footage showed crowds gathered outside the city hall in Jiangyou, with large crowds stretching around the block. Video also showed people being forcibly pulled aside, and police wearing SWAT uniforms subduing at least three people at an intersection with hundreds of bystanders.<\/p>\n Several Taiwanese news organisations<\/a> included footage from the protests<\/a> in their reports<\/a> (archived here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n But the circulating compilation, which was shared elsewhere on YouTube<\/a>, TikTok<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>, misuses unrelated clips.<\/p>\n Reverse image searches<\/a> on Google and Baidu using keyframes<\/a> from the visuals found they all predate the protests in Jiangyou.<\/p>\n Taiwanese fact-checking organisation Taiwan Factcheck Center<\/a> also previously debunked the false claim the clips show escalating protests in China (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The first falsely shared clip was previously shared on December 31, 2024 on Douyin<\/a>, where it included a hashtag for “Hong Kong New Year’s Eve Fireworks” (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The video corresponds to\u00a0Google Street View imagery<\/a> of a stretch of\u00a0Nathan Road — one of Hong Kong’s main thoroughfares (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\nNew Year’s celebrations<\/h2>\n