DigitEye India Fact Checkers
As Germany is set to impose strict restrictions for the unvaccinated in the wake of rising infections of Covid-19 Omicron variant, several messages started hitting the social media platform, while in some places protests against the restrictions were held.
Who wants to start an antivaxx protest?#protest #Proteste #Protesta #verzet #Germany pic.twitter.com/qEEczvbmt3
— Protest News (@ProtestNews_EN) December 4, 2021
As Germany is set to impose strict restrictions for the unvaccinated in the wake of rising infections of Covid-19 Omicron variant, several messages started hitting the social media platform, while in some places protests against the restrictions were held.
In this context, an article by the German news website “Deutsche Welle” has gone viral on social media featuring the image of a ‘mass kissing’ event, with a claim that it was a sort of protest by anti-vaxxers in Germany.
The article states in the headline, “German anti-vaccine protests outrage public health officials as thousands gather to kiss each other.” The summary claims, “Lawmakers consider law to criminalize kissing in public spaces.”
FACT CHECK
When the Digiteye India team checked for the original news report in DW, no such report appeared in search results. The screenshot showing “Deutsche Welle” was morphed as the news outlet did not publish any such report.
The search based on the image in Google Reverse Image Search landed the team of a different event that took place on Sept. 1, 2011 about couples kissing during the ‘World Kiss Marathon for Education’, which was held in Chile’s Santiago and not in Germany. See related report and images here.
The original picture belongs to the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) taken by Felipe Trueba about the mass kissing event that was held by students of Chile demanding better education opportunities in the country 10 years ago.
Claim: Germany anti-vaxxers held a mass kissing event to protest restrictions on unvaccinated people.
Conclusion: No such mass kissing event was held and DW did not carry any such news report and a wrong old image was used.
Rating: Misrepresenation — 
