Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the ongoing war, footage has flooded social media claiming to be connected to the current conflict. VERIFY has fact-checked many of those images and videos in order to help our readers determine what’s true and what’s false.
Recently, a video shared multiple times on different social media platforms appears to show a billboard in New York City that has “Stand with Israel” text bumping “Stand with Ukraine” off the digital screens. On one screen, the Ukrainian flag is also replaced with the Israeli flag. One X post, which has since been deleted and the account is now “temporarily restricted,” had millions of views.
In some of the posts, the video flashes to screens showing the logo for ABC News, with text on one screen that says “Watch the news” and another screen that says “Stay in trend.”
InfoWars, a website known for promoting conspiracy theories, published an article with the headline: “Watch: ABC News Billboard Shows ‘Stand With Israel’ Stomping Out ‘Stand With Ukraine.’”
Some people on social media have claimed the billboard never showed that text.
THE QUESTION
Do these posts show a real NYC billboard that has “Stand with Israel” text replacing “Stand with Ukraine”?
THE SOURCES
- Jason King, a spokesperson for Clear Channel Outdoors
- A network source with ABC News
- RevEye, a reverse image search tool
THE ANSWER
No, these posts do not show a real billboard that has “Stand with Israel” text replacing “Stand with Ukraine.”
WHAT WE FOUND
The viral posts appear to show a digital billboard advertisement at the intersection of 7th Avenue and West 50th Street near New York City’s Times Square. While there is a digital billboard at that location, this ad seen in the video is not real, Jason King, a spokesman for Clear Channel Outdoors told VERIFY.
Clear Channel Outdoors manages the billboards in the area. King told VERIFY “the ad is fake and has never run on our displays.”
King told VERIFY the entire ad seen in the video is fake, even the first part that appears to be a separate ad in support of Ukraine.
An ABC network source also confirmed this is not an advertisement from ABC News, as the InfoWars article claimed.
Additionally, VERIFY conducted a reverse image search and found no other images of this purported digital ad. VERIFY also searched social media for alternate angles of this digital ad seen in Times Square and found none.
The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter, text alerts and our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Learn More »