Did a viral video show protests in Iran in the fall of 2026? No, that's not true: The video had been online for months before resurfacing in late September 2026. The earliest posts with the footage went live on social media on Dec. 31, 2025.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on Sept. 30, 2026, by the @realJohnJohnJr account. It read:
🚨BREAKING: Thousands of Iranians are on the streets preparing to take back their country from the radical Islamists. Why is the Legacy Media not reporting this?
This is what the video shared in the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @realJohnJohnJr on X.)
The implication of the caption was that the footage documented a recent wave of dissent.
During the week that the post was published, media reports discussed (archived here) protests of the country's hijab law in Iran, but the clip in question did not show those rallies.
The video had been online since Dec. 31, 2025, when it was posted on Instagram (archived here and here) and Facebook (archived here and here) amid mass protests in Iran (archived here).
The footage was republished (archived here) by U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 1, 2026, without a caption.
