Did a photo show a huge crowd flattening the bridge deck of San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge during the "No Kings" protest on June 14, 2025? No, that's not true: A viral post wrongly attributed to biologist David Attenborough was talking about 1987 events and used a photo from that year. There were no news reports about "No Kings" events on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco.
One example of the claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on June 15, 2025 where the photo was used in combination with this text:
NO KING. 6 /14 /25 The crowd was so dense that officials had to close the bridge and allow only pedestrians. The weight of the crowd caused the bridge's suspension deck to flatten, eliminating the slight upward arch that normally characterizes the roadway. All 419,000 tons groaned and swayed in the wind. While the bridge was structurally sound and did not suffer any damage - David Attenborough.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Jun 16 06:06:18 2025 UTC)
More or less the same text appeared on a Facebook page named "David Attenborough Fans" (archived here) just a little bit earlier, but without the reference to "No King":
The crowd was so dense that officials had to close the bridge and allow only pedestrians. The weight of the crowd caused the bridge's suspension deck to flatten, eliminating the slight upward arch that normally characterizes the roadway. All 419,000 tons groaned and swayed in the wind. While the bridge was structurally sound and did not suffer any damage, the change in shape was alarming to many pedestrians. Engineers described it as a "once-in-a-lifetime event," but stressed that there was no real danger.
That post did not mention the "No Kings" protests that took place in June 2025.
The photo has been online for much longer, for example it appeared in this 2014 Los Angeles Times photo gallery (archived here) titled "Photos: Golden Gate Bridge celebrates 75th anniversary" where the photo was captioned:
In this May 24, 1987 file photo, a crowd estimated at several hundred thousand jams the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco during a walk to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bridge. (Doug Atkins / Associated Press)
Reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle about the "No Kings" march on Saturday, June 14, 2025 in San Francisco included details about the route, which did not include the Golden Gate Bridge:
Saturday's protesters assembled in San Francisco's Dolores Park long before the start of the march, then headed north on Dolores Street and down Market Street.
