Fact check: Altered Guardian headline on 'Insulate Britain' protest

Sudiksha Kochi, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: Headline reports ambulance carrying Insulate Britain protester was caught in traffic jam from protest

A series of staged roadblocks in central London by Insulate Britain, a UK-based environmental activist group, led to arrests by authorities and heavy traffic on Oct. 4, according to an article published by the Guardian, a British daily newspaper.

Social media users, however, have been circulating an altered version of this story's headline.

A Facebook user shared a screenshot on Oct. 5 which purportedly shows the Oct. 4 article with the headline "Ambulance carrying Insulate Britain protestor – who was beaten up by angry motorists – is caught in traffic jam caused by another Insulate Britain protest."

In the screenshot, the secondary headline of the article reads, "Protestors stop traffic at Hanger Lane, the Blackwall tunnel, Wandsworth Bridge" and a picture shows protesters being dragged away.

Insulate Britain protesters have blocked major roads throughout London in recent weeks as the group urges the UK government to fully fund insulation in all Britain's social housing by 2025, according to Reuters.

The image and another similar post were shared more than 150 times within two weeks.

But, the image is altered. The screenshot does not show an actual story from the Guardian, according to a spokesperson for the newspaper.

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USA TODAY reached out to social media users who shared the post for comment.

Headline of the article is altered

The original headline of the Oct. 4 article published by the Guardian reads, "Drivers clash with Insulate Britain activists blocking three London roads."

"The screenshots shared are not a published Guardian headline," Mel Tompkins, spokesperson for the Guardian newspaper, told USA TODAY.

But, the secondary headline and image in the screenshot do match the original article.

There were two references made to an ambulance in the article, but neither matched the claim in the altered headline.

The first reference made in the article points to a video shared by news organization LBC on Twitter on Oct. 4, in which a woman pleads with a group of protesters blocking the entrance to Blackwell Tunnel to move so she can get her mother to the hospital.

The other reference was a tweet that was shared by talkRADIO on Oct. 4, where a man is quoted saying, "There’s an ambulance...get out of the road."

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There were no references to an injured Insulate Britain protester riding an ambulance. There is no evidence such an event occurred.

Our rating: Altered

Based on our research, we rate ALTERED an image that purports to show a Guardian headline reporting that an ambulance carrying an Insulate Britain protesteor was itself caught in a traffic jam from the protest. The screenshots are not a published Guardian headline, and there is no evidence anything like that happened.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Altered Guardian headline on 'Insulate Britain' protest