Photo shows live street art, not a captured anti-fascist

CLAIM: Photo shows antifa member who was tackled by Trump supporters then duct taped to an electrical box. 

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The photo shows a work created by the street artist Rallitox, for the 2015-2016 participatory art series “Human Stickers” in Berlin. 

THE FACTS: A photo circulated on Facebook showing a man duct-taped to an electrical box with “I’m a unicorn” written on him.

“Trump supporters tackled an antifa thug, unmasked him, duct taped him to an electrical box, placed a dildo on his head & wrote ’I’m a unicorn on him…,” a Facebook post published on June 10 falsely claimed. The post had over 1,400 shares. 

The post featured a screenshot from a now suspended Twitter parody account titled “Fifth Avenue Antifa.” The screenshot of the tweet states: “How can we let Nazis do this to our comrades.” The tweet from the antifa, short of anti-fascist, parody page has been circulating since at least 2017.  

According to the Rallitox website, the creation was part of a “human stickers” series. “Rallitox’s latest sociological experiment in Warschauer strasse, Berlin, is to transform a friend into a sticker — or rather — to stick a friend to a wall with duct tape,” the website states.  

The making of the project was filmed and published to Rallitox’s Instagram account on March 31, 2016. 

___

This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.

Here’s more information on Facebook’s fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536