Does a photo show a pile of pornographic DVDs found in the palace of Bashar al-Assad near Damascus, Syria? No, that's not true: The DVDs pictured were part of a May 15, 2021, estate auction originating from Australia. The original photo was published on the Danielle Elizabeth Auctions website in Queensland. The image in the social media post shows the same DVD titles as they appeared in Lot 121 of the auction. The image in the post was made by cropping, rotating, and reconfiguring two different areas from the image originating on the auction website.
The image surfaced in a post (archived here) published on X by @Breaking911 on December 8, 2024. It was captioned:
NSFW: Additional pile of movies found in Assad's palace.
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Dec 09 20:30:19 2024 UTC)
The images pictured above can be found on the danielleelizabeth.com.au (archived here) auction website, which described Lot 121 in the May 15, 2021, auction as:
3 Boxes of Porn DVD's - Most have proof of over 18 to buy!
I agree folks this is a bit out of our comfort zone... but it was found in a deceased estate and the family want as much money out of it as they can get. So we are selling dear old dads 3 boxes of porn DVD's. I roughly counted 98 DVD's in this lot, all cased and in good condition. When you consider these have prices of approx $21 each on them, this is a $2,000 retail bulk lot.
Please remember the winning bidder must send us a copy of their drivers licence (same name as on their Invaluable Invoice) showing the buyer to be over 18 years of age to be able to collect.
The auction site photo (pictured below right) shows three boxes of DVDs. At first glance, the Breaking911 image (inset below left) appears to be two stacks of DVDs beside each other, but it consists of two more closely cropped details showing the contents of the boxes from the auction image. The left side panel contains the DVDs pictured in the box in the lower-left corner of the auction photo, and the right side panel shows the contents in the lower right side box. This cropped segment on the right has been rotated 180 degrees, matching the orientation of DVD titles on the left.
(Source: X and danielleelizabeth.com.au screenshots taken on Mon Dec 09 22:13:10 2024 UTC)
The Breaking 911 image is not merely a photo of the same DVD collection -- the altered image was made with the same exact photo dating back to 2021. This photo was not taken in Syria before or after Assad's palace in the al-Muhajirin area of Damascus, Syria was ransacked on December 8, 2024.
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Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims posted by Breaking911 can be found here.
