Is this viral image a real photo of a woman in a pink shirt carrying black-and-white bags standing in front of three black SUVs marked 'ICE' while holding up a phone? No, that's not true: The image is a digital edit made to resemble a famous historical picture known as "Tank Man". That picture showed a man carrying shopping bags standing in front of a column of tanks in China in 1989.
One example of the viral image appeared in a Bluesky post (archived here) on January 10, 2026 with a caption that read:
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This is what the image looked like:
(Image source: Kara Swisher post on Bluesky)
The image is a digital edit likely meant to evoke the famous "Tank Man" picture taken for The Associated Press by Jeff Widener in 1989:
Wikipedia currently describes (archived here) the image as:
"Tank Man" blocks a column of Type 59 tanks heading east on Beijing's Chang'an Boulevard (Avenue of Eternal Peace) near Tiananmen Square during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. This photo was taken from the sixth floor of the Beijing Hotel, about half a mile away, through a 800 mm lens at 1/30th of a second on June 5, 1989. The name and fate of the man is unknown.
The viral image has the exact same streetlight, shadows and road markings as the "Tank Man" picture.
