Stand up for the facts!

Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy.
We need your help.

More Info

I would like to contribute

Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke October 14, 2022

Shooting video taken in Brazil, not Venezuela

If Your Time is short

  • This video was taken in Brazil, not Venezuela. 
 

A day after the United States announced that Venezuelan migrants who walk or swim across the U.S.-Mexico border would be immediately returned to Mexico, a video started to circulate on social media that claimed to show gunfire at a soccer game in the South American country. 

"Tf is going on in Venezuela," read the caption on one post sharing the video taken from the stands of a soccer game that shows shooting.  

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

El Imparcial, a Mexican newspaper, reported in September that the shooting happened in a Brazilian favela in Rio de Janeiro.

Featured Fact-check

O Dia, a newspaper in Rio, also said in September that police were looking into the video in connection with a drug trafficking investigation.  

Sign up for PolitiFact texts

Millions of Venezuelans have fled their country amid violence, socio-economic insecurity, food shortages and a lack of medical care. They recently surpassed Guatemalans and Hondurans as the second-largest nationality stopped at the U.S. border after Mexicans, according to the Associated Press

But this video doesn’t show shooting in Venezuela. 

We rate that claim False.

 

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by Ciara O'Rourke

Shooting video taken in Brazil, not Venezuela

Support independent fact-checking.
Become a member!

In a world of wild talk and fake news, help us stand up for the facts.

Sign me up