Does a genuine photo show protesters in London holding up signs that say "Rapists Welcome" and "Stand Up For Rapists"? No, that's not true: Digital forensics tools show the photo has been digitally altered. Photos showing similar, non-edited signs show "Refugees Welcome" and "Stand Up To Racism" slogans.
The photo appeared in a post on X (archived here) where it was published on February 2, 2025.
This is what the image looked like:
(Source: screenshot from x.com taken by Lead Stories on February 3, 2025 at at 10:13:42 UTC)
According to image forensics tool InVID WeVerify the area in the image with the signs in it contained compression artifacts that indicated it likely originated from a different JPEG image.
(Source: screenshot of InVID forensics results taken by Lead Stories on February 3, 2025 at at 10:17:42 UTC)
Lead Stories was not able to find the original photo, but clues in the background show it was taken in Whitehall, London. In the background the base of a statue can be seen with lettering that reads: "Commander-in-Chief of the British Army 1856-1895 Born 1819 Died 1904".
That statue is located in Whitehall, London.
(Source: Google Street View screenshot taken by Lead Stories on February 3, 2025 at at 10:29:15 UTC)
An organization named "Stand Up to Racism" reported they held a rally there on February 1, 2025 (archived here), featuring signs that had the name of the organization up top and the slogan "Refugees Welcome":
(Source: screenshots from standuptoracism.org.uk taken by Lead Stories on February 3, 2025 at at 10:35:41 UTC)
The same sign appears to have been used by the organization during the summer of 2024 as well, as can be seen in BBC coverage of an earlier protest (archived here):
(Source: screenshots from standuptoracism.org.uk taken by Lead Stories on February 3, 2025 at at 10:37:49 UTC)
A reverse image search (archived here) for the edited photo brought up no results indicating the photo was not published anywhere else before it appeared on X. No news websites indexed by Google News reported on any story mentioning the phrases "rapists welcome" and "stand up for rapists" (archived here) at the time of writing of this article.
