Social media users falsely link 2023 photo to ongoing Columbia protest | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
Updated ·3 min read
2

The claim: Image shows protesters blocking Jewish people from entering Columbia University in April 2024

An April 21 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a black and white photo of people holding hands and blocking the entrance of a building. Beneath this is a photo of a group of people holding Palestinian flags and a sign that says, "Free Palestine."

"What’s the difference?" reads the post's caption. "In 1938 they blocked Jews from entering Vienna University. In 2024, n@zis are blocking Jews from entering @columbia."

The post garnered more than 6,000 likes in 10 days. Other versions of the claim were shared on Instagram, Facebook and X, formerly Twitter.

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Our rating: False

The attempted comparison falls flat since the color photo doesn't show the April 2024 protests. It was taken during a separate pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University in October 2023. There's no evidence the protesters in the 2023 photo were blocking access to the college campus.

Photo of protesters captured in 2023

Columbia University began suspending the latest round of students involved in the Gaza war protests on April 29 after demonstrators failed to meet the university's deadline to clear their encampments. The next morning, protesters seized an academic building and linked arms to block its entrance.

The image shown in the Facebook post wasn't captured during the April protests, however.

The photo was taken by The Associated Press in October 2023 during a separate pro-Palestinian demonstration at the school, days after the Hamas surprise attack that spurred the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The photo's caption doesn't mention anything about the demonstrators blocking access to Columbia's campus – for Jewish students or anyone else.

The Columbia Journalism School also debunked the false claim on X on April 26, responding to a viral X post shared by singer Sean Feucht.

"In this tweet, that has 22.8k views and was reposted on Instagram, Feucht claims that protestors blocked Jewish students from entering Columbia's campus," the post reads. "This is FALSE. The '2024' photo was taken *inside* the campus gates in October 2023, at the latest."

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The top image shows a group of men preventing Jewish students from entering Vienna University in 1938, as the Instagram post claims. The men were members of the Sturmabteilung, a paramilitary organization closely associated with the Nazi Party, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

PolitiFact also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 2023 photo falsely linked to ongoing Columbia protest | Fact check