Is a photo showing a woman holding a pro-Palestine sign that reads "You don't get to choose who we rape" authentic? No, that's not true: the photo was digitally altered to change the original sign which read "You don't get to choose how we resist." While the woman in the picture is a real protester at a real pro-Palestine ceasefire rally, there was no mention of any form of sexual assault on the poster in the original photo.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on May 7, 2024. The caption of the post read:
this is the pro Palestine 'movement'...
Below the caption is the image of a woman holding a sign at what appears to be a pro-Palestine protest. The sign appears to read:
YOU DONT GET TO CHOOSE WHO WE RAPE
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed May 8 15:56:30 2024 UTC)
A Google Lens search (archived here) produced an "exact matches" page (archived here) where a February 3, 2024, X post (archived here) was located that displays the unedited version of the image. As seen in the February 3, 2024, X post, the unedited version of the sign reads:
YOU DONT GET TO CHOOSE HOW WE RESIST
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed May 8 19:17:30 2024 UTC)
A comment (archived here) underneath this post made by social media user @JewishStarlight on February 3, 2024, reads:
This was in our city, which makes it hurt all the more. I took the photo on Oct 9. 😫
In the X profile biography of user @jewishstarlight, a self-description reads, in part, "Canadian-Jewish-Zionista Photographer" and posts her location as Toronto. A search of @jewishstarlight's account revealed a December 31, 2023, post (archived here) that displays the original, unedited, clearer and wide-shot image of the woman holding the poster at a pro-Palestine rally in Toronto that reads, "You don't get to choose how we resist."
Other fact-check agencies have also reviewed this claim, including Snopes and Yahoo News.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks that mention the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict can be found here.
