Does a viral post prove that participants of the "No Kings" rallies in March 2026 were paid hourly to protest? No, that's not true: The claim purporting to show the first-person statement of a real protester was first posted by an account that previously referred to its content as parody. Two online detectors concluded that the account's profile picture was unlikely to show a real human.
The claim originated from a post (archived here and here) on X, where it was published on March 29, 2026. It opened:
Ok, I'm spilling the beans. Yesterday myself and several others were paid between $20 and $40 per hour to attend a No Kings protest. The reason many people don't talk about it is because it impacts our welfare payments if we disclose. MAGA cope and seethe.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @drritaded on X.)
The post reviewed in this fact check referenced March 28, 2026, rallies (archived here) that took place in multiple cities across the U.S., attracting thousands of participants.
The claim was initially posted by the account named @drritaded. Earlier, in December 2025, the account posted (archived here):
Bro, it's a parody called Dr Retarded. You still don't see it?
The account's bio (archived here and here) mentioned the R-word once again and claimed that the person behind it "escaped the USA" after sharing a plan to move to the U.K. in a November 2025 post (archived here). Describing itself as "PCF_LABEL_NONE," that account's bio also showed a comedy mask -- an icon consistent with X's self-selected label for Parody, Fan, and Commentary accounts on X (archived here), as seen, for example, here (archived here).
Two online AI detectors, InVID-WeVerify and Hive Moderation, placed the probability that the account's profile picture was was AI-generated at 83% and 100%, respectively.
(Image source: InVID-WeVerify.)
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
