Does the viral image of crowds actually show the anti-immigration rally in London on May 16, 2026? No, that's not true: The picture had been online since at least February of 2026. AI detection tools identified the image as edited or generated using AI.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here and here) published on X on May 16, 2026. It read:
Unite the Kingdom Rally in London today. London Met Police: Only 50,000 attended the march. Grok: Estimates the number of people in this photograph alone at 200,000 - 400,000. Globalists, you're on notice.
The post included an image of a crowd, and this is what that picture looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @LarryTaunton on X.)
The post with the image in question was published on the day when two separate mass rallies took place in London, U.K., at the same time. The implication was that the picture showed one of those current events: the anti-immigration "Unite the Kingdom" march.
However, that was not the case. The image had already gone viral at least twice before that rally: on April 23, 2026 (archived here and here) and Feb. 27, 2026 (archived here).
The "About this image" tab on Google suggested that the picture was even older and was generated by AI:
(Image source: Google.)
Lead Stories was not able to immediately find a version of the image from 2025 whose existence was suggested by Google, but other reverse image search results supported the earlier origin. For example, it showed that the picture was published on Facebook on March 13, 2025, in a group that, according to its self-description, "was created to promote the two Liberia Comedian Paul Flomo and Angel Michael."
(Image source: Google.)
As ther time of writing, the image was not available on Facebook:
(Image source: Facebook.)
Google's Gemini tool also analyzed the image and detected a SynthID watermark, indicating it was created or edited using Google AI tools:
(Image source: Google Gemini.)
AI detection tool ZeroGPT said that the picture was "68% FAKE":
(Image source: ZeroGPT.)
Another similar tool, Sightengine, suggested the picture was 99% likely to have been produced by AI:
(Image source: Sightengine.)
