A video showing a man climbing a street lamp and removing American flags is being widely circulated on social media. Shared after Zohran Mamdani’s win in the mayoral primary for New York City, the footage is being shared with claims that Muslims in the city are taking down US flags.
On June 26, 2025, X user @iAnonPatriot shared the video with the claim. (Archive)
Another X user, @RadioGenoa, also posted the video claiming that Muslims hated America. (Archive)
The video was further amplified by other X users such as @nicksortor, @coolfunnytshirt and @AlexDuncanTX. (Archives 1, 2, 3)
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The video was also viral on Facebook with the same claim. Screenshots below:
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Fact Check
To check the authenticity of the video and claims, we ran a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the clip and landed on a YouTube video. This video, which is the same as the viral clip, was uploaded on November 12, 2023, and the caption reads, “DISGUSTING! Pro Palestine protester ripping down American 
flags in NYC.”
We also came across the same video in an X post from November 11, 2023. The caption said that a Palestinian activist ‘desecrated’ the American flag on Veterans Day.
We also found some news articles from around that time on protests by pro-Palestine demonstrators in which access to the Grand Central terminal was temporarily blocked. A report by Fox News from November 11, 2023, featured a similar video of someone taking down flags from a lamppost. The caption of the video said, “Pro-Palestinian protester arrested after tearing down American flags in New York City”.
Thus, the viral video has been shared with misleading communal claims after Zohran Mamdani’s win as the Democratic nominee for New York City’s mayoral race. It is from a 2023 pro-Palestine demonstration.