Does a viral video portray the 2024 mass protests in Venezuela in response to the contested results of this year's presidential election? No, that's not true: The footage has been online since 2017. It showed a different rally in the country's capital.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on July 29, 2024. It opened:
🚨🇻🇪 Venezuela Riots
Protestors have completely taken over following election result.
Insane footage.
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Jul 20 14:35:15 2024 UTC)
The post implied that the video showed recent events.
2024 Events
At the end of July 2024, Venezuela witnessed multiple protests (archived here) over the disputed outcome of the presidential election (archived here). But the video in the claim did not depict any of those rallies.
2017 Events
The footage purporting to document 2024 events initially appeared on social media on April 20, 2017 (archived here). It showed a banner referencing the national capital's municipal authorities known as Alcadia de Caracas.
On April 19, 2017, a mass rally (archived here) described by the opposition as "the mother of all protests" took place in the city. During this protest, which filled a Caracas highway (archived here) seven years ago, participants were tear-gassed. At least three people were killed (archived here).
The video of those events resurfaced on July 29, 2024, when it was published again (archived here) by the former Vice President of Colombia Marta Lucía Ramírez, among others.
The same claim was also reviewed by Columbia Check.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Venezuela are here.
