DigitEye India Fact Checkers
On Black Friday, which marks the Thanksgiving Day shopping frenzy, the United States social media is abuzz with several offers, discounts and coupons from retailers. Amid this shopping frenzy, a viral video is making rounds claiming that African-Americans robbed a Nike store in Los Angeles. The same video has been shared with varied captions or claims on social media. See them here:
Best Black Friday ever!
Most of the offer was at 100% “off” and only for blacks!
Way to go Nike! pic.twitter.com/gcpxbeMssE— Csaba 🇭🇺 (@cybakk) December 1, 2023
BREAKING: Nike had a “Black” Friday sale that will make you want to run. Everything’s free if you’re the right person.
Will this behavior ever end?
How should it be stopped?
— ᴊᴀᴄᴋ ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ (@AmericazOutlaw) November 27, 2023
It has been shared widely here and here.
FACT CHECK
The Digiteye India received a request on WhatsApp to check its veracity. When we took out key frames and search them in Google Reverse Image Search, the results showed that it was an old video uploaded on Buzz News YouTube channel on 31, May 2020. The video caption says ‘NIKE store broken into and completely looted’.
The incident was true and it was covered in local news outlets as well. NBC Chicago published it on May 30, 2020, reporting about the incident when angry mob vandalized several retail stores at Michigan Avenue, Chicago, while protesting for George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
It may be recalled that George Floyd was an African-American killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a complaint from a store clerk that Floyd gave a fake $20 bill on May 25, 2020. The incident triggered a country-wide protests with the hashtag #BlacklivesMatter.
Claim: African American robbed Nike shoe retail store in LA.
Conclusion: Three-year-old video used to portray that it was an incident related to the recent Black Friday Sale.
Rating: Misleading — 
