Chinese and English influencers on Weibo, X and Threads have claimed that a photo shows a huge crowd of people waiting to get into an Oct. 27 rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

“This picture was taken 3 HOURS ago of people lined up to see Trump at MSG,” reads the X post, which other influencers cited. A Chinese-language account on X disseminated the same photo with a similar caption.

But the photo was actually taken in 2011 of people in Dublin waiting to go into a concert attended by former U.S. President Barack Obama.

While people did line up in Manhattan to enter the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, the photo in question was from 13 years ago.

The bus stop sign does not look like those in New York, and flags in people’s hands are different from the materials used at other Trump rallies.

But more convincingly, a reverse image search revealed a similar image published by The Guardian in May 2011 of crowds in Dublin waiting to attend a concert attended by Obama. The photo was sourced from Getty Images and credited to photographer Peter Macdiarmid.

A further search through Getty’s records found a separate photo taken by Macdiarmid with a frame composition identical to the photo shared on X.

A comparison shows that the influencers zoomed in and cropped the center of the original photo. The crowds, buildings, and positioning of policemen on the street are an exact match.

Translated and edited by Shen Ke. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhuang Jing.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.