In a video shared hundreds of times since October 18, an anti-sanitary pass protester streams live webcam footage on his phone showing the main square in Trieste, Italy. On the images of the webcam, the place seems almost empty while this man is surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in this same place. According to netizens, this proves that the camera was tampered with to hide the demonstration. In reality, the perspective used to film the crowd does not prove this and several clues suggest that the gathering was not in the angle of the webcam.

Since Friday October 15, the health pass has become mandatory in all workplaces in Italy. This new regulation caused demonstrations in several cities of the country in particular in Trieste, in North.

A video has been relayed several hundred times on Facebook, Twitter and Telegram. It shows a protester showing on a phone the images of a webcam, which broadcasts live video online from the main public square of Trieste (Piazza Unità d'Italia), where he is. On the images of the camera, it appears almost empty while a crowd is visible around him.

The man's telephone indicates 8:30 p.m. and, if it is not possible to formally authenticate the video he is broadcasting, it does show the page of the Skyline webcams site intended for the quasi-live broadcast of images of this square in Trieste.

"This is the 'Trieste live webcam', where they are showing Unity Square right now, 8:30 p.m. This is the real situation, this is the real situation, this is what they want us to believe", indignantly l man in the video. On Facebook, a user wonders: "How is it conceivable that the official live webcam of the City of Trieste (IT) shows images of this place where you can hardly see anyone, while in the same public square , there are maybe 10 to 30 thousand demonstrators?”

In reality, the video taken by the demonstrator does not prove that the webcam was rigged: he is standing at one end of the gathering, at the end of the square, and the way he is filming him, coupled with the perspective games of a large place, does not allow a clear assessment of its scope. Furthermore, other videos recorded that evening suggest that the rally was not spread out over the whole square and was not standing in the corner of the webcam, which does not cover the entire Piazza Unità d' Italy.

Moreover, contrary to what the Internet user who shares the video on Facebook claims, the webcam is not an "official" camera of the city of Trieste, but belongs to the company Skyline Webcams, intended for entertainment.

When was this video shot?

According to several Italian sites and media, like this one or this one, this video was taken on October 18, 2021. AFP did not find any other occurrences of it before that day. The first videos appear on social networks shortly after 8:30 p.m., the time mentioned by the protester. Moreover, it was relayed around 9 p.m. on October 18 in the Telegram feed of an anti-sanitary pass group, in which videos of the demonstrations were shared, which were broadcast only seconds after the events.

As spotted by the Italian fact-checker Open Online in an article published on October 19, 2021, the day of October 18 was covered live by Local Team, an Italian online media. In one of the Local Team videos, we see the same sign as at the beginning of the video of the protesters.

Where are the demonstrators that evening?

Protests against the workplace health pass started in Trieste as early as Friday, October 15, 2021, and the city's port was blocked by some protesters. They lasted several days and gave rise to clashes with the police. On October 18, Italian media described around 2,000 protesters at midday.

On Monday, October 18, 2021, the demonstration began at the port, then protesters moved to the large public square, Piazza Unità d'Italia, according to Italian media. This place is located very close to the port of the city. On social media, several videos, like this one, show a large crowd gathered in the square earlier in the day.

Thanks to several clues, we can locate the place where approximately, around 8:30 p.m., the author of the video that we are checking is standing: it is the red cross on the map.

At 12 seconds after the start of the video, we can see, far in the background, the town hall and the Palazzo Pitteri (blue circles numbered 1 and 2). At 14 seconds, behind the banner, the imposing building with flags, headquarters of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region (blue circle numbered 3), also visible at the very beginning of the video. The demonstrator filming stands with his back to the Prefecture Palace, which can be seen at the end of the video (blue circle, number 7). They can also be located thanks to the presence of the two memorials to the dead (circled in orange and numbered 4 and 5) and a lamppost very close to them (circled in yellow, numbered 6).

On the other side, towards the square, we can observe at about 0'27 in the video, that the crowd seems to extend at least to the lamppost numbered 8 and circled in yellow on the diagram. As we will observe below, the memorials to the dead and lampposts 6 and 8 are not in the angle of the webcam.

Where is the webcam located?

The camera incriminated by the protester in the video is placed at the corner of Capo di Piazza G. Bartoli street, according to Skyline webcams. It broadcasts almost live - with a delay of 20 seconds - on the Skyline Webcams site. The company says on its Q&A page that it doesn't keep an archive of the videos. But the site, apart from its live camera, also allows you to watch a "timelapse" which shows an accelerated version of the images of the past day.

The fact-checker Open Online recorded this "timelapse" captured by the camera on October 17 and 18, 2021 before it was overwritten by that of the next day, and published it in its October 19 article. Skyline Webcams confirmed to AFP that this video shows the day of October 18, 2021.

In the afternoon that day (from 23 seconds), a crowd is seen moving to the right of the square and protesters seated, around 28 seconds - which matches the photos and videos published from this day even if the webcam only shows part of the demonstration, to the right of its field of vision.

At the end of the afternoon (about 35 seconds), a new movement coming from the city goes towards the right of the place, where the port is. But after dark, webcam footage does not show a crowd like the one shown by the protester in the video we are checking.

On October 19, 2021, the site Skyline Webcams posted a statement on Twitter and Facebook, explaining that the orientation of the camera did not allow to see the demonstration, which was held in a place of the square not covered by the camera: " The accusations that the images of Piazza Unità d'Italia were faked are false (...) The Skyline Webcams camera is installed at the corner (of the street) Capo di Piazza G. Bartoli and only films a part of Piazza Unità d'Italia (...) Yesterday's event took place in the part of the square that faces Riva del Mandracchio (by the sea). a matter of (wrong) perspective".

Contacted on October 27, 2021, Skyline Webcams assured AFP that the square camera did not suffer "from any bug or problem" on the evening of October 18, 2021. "For the sake of completeness, we report that before the morning of the 18th, the webcam was briefly offline (visible in the first seconds of the timelapse), which can happen to all webcams from time to time and depends on internet connectivity.

If we look carefully at the images transmitted by the webcam, we observe that it only covers part of Piazza Unità d'Italia, which goes from Palazzo Pitteri to a little more than half of the seat of the region - an angle that is actually a little wider than that drawn by Skyline Webcams in its press release. For example, the war memorials we mentioned above, located at the end of the square, are not visible in the field of the webcam.

The images broadcast by the Italian media that evening also indicate that around 8:20 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., the demonstrators were only gathered in part of the square, invisible to the camera.

Thus, the 8 p.m. news of the main Italian public television channel Rai 1 was live in the square 18 minutes after the start of the news, around 8:18 p.m., a few minutes before the recording of the video that we are checking.

The Rai 1 journalist is at the other end of the square, not far from the Fontana dei Quattro Continenti (the Fountain of the Four Continents), opposite the port and the prefecture. From this point of view, we do not see any gathering at the foot of the headquarters of the region. However, we can guess people on the other side of the fountain, near the prefecture, in the blind spot of the webcam.

The regional television Telequattro also broadcast live images of the demonstration around 9:30 p.m.: we see that the rally is mainly located in front of the Palace of the Prefecture, again corresponding to the blind spot of the webcam.

In conclusion, it is false to assert that this video proves that the webcam is rigged. If it is not possible to verify with certainty that the webcam was working without problem that evening, Skyline Webcams explains that it was working normally and a demonstration that occurred a little earlier is visible in the "timelapse" of this day. . In addition, the camera angle of the demonstration in the video we are checking does not allow us to precisely measure its perimeter at 8:30 p.m., but it can be established that the person filming is at one end of the square which does not is not in the angle of the webcam. Finally, the images from Italian television live in the square 10 minutes before 8:30 p.m. and one hour after do not show a crowd in the angle of the webcam.