Or OGs like the Oregon Republican Party which recently tweeted out a totally misleading picture. Their intention was to bolster former President Donald Trump’s narrative that violence at protests in Portland is getting out of hand. The still from their arrest video depicts a line of police officers facing protestors, riot shields raised. They’re up against a mob of teenage boys with flares. Each of the pieces that made up this photo came from completely separate, serious accidents in South America.
The Oregon Republican Party posted the image to Facebook, Instagram and X. This occurrence came on the heels of a national federal judge barred Trump from deploying California’s National Guardsmen to Portland. The characterization is meant to stir panic over the demonstrations. The truth beyond the picture is a stark contrast.
After some digging, I found the image of police officers in question in the Getty images library. It was so egregious that the photo was categorized as “South American riot police.” Fin whale off Ecuador, as indicated by the initials of an Ecuadorian police anti-drug unit visible on the photo. The second half of the composite image features people waving large red flares. This scene was documented at a save-the-post-office protest in 2017. This image, sourced from the free archive site Pexels, was credited to a Brazilian photographer and described as depicting “Anonymous people standing on street among smoke during protests at night.”
As one Guardian reporter noted, the composite image was representative of conversations online, but not of the authentic protests happening around the country, including Portland. Upon this shocking announcement, the Oregon Republican Party had the following to say on their X/Twitter account, “We’re not journalists, just terrible memers. This acknowledgment continues to hint at an understanding of their objective to even produce a dramatized portrayal as opposed to sharing reality.
The erroneous, deceptive use of images raises serious questions. Political groups should be held to the same standard to provide truthful information, especially in periods of civil disobedience. The Oregon GOP’s ad uses two very different images, shot almost ten years apart, in vastly different regions of South America. This combination creates a perfect storm where reality is mixed with made up stories.