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From Facebook:

Alleged aerial image of Occupy Wall Street

This photo is actually getting pulled off Facebook...so, the photographer added a lil text and renamed the file. Pass it on. I'm SURE the media doesn't want this one out there. Share it as much as you can.

Leaving aside the claim that the image is being pulled from Facebook, or that "the media" denies the protest is happening, is this an accurate photograph of the Occupy Wall Street protest?

It doesn't ring true to me: It seems far more populated than other photos of the event would suggest, and I would have thought more flags and placards would be visible, but I don't know.

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    Those trees look very green for October.
    – oosterwal
    Oct 10, 2011 at 12:27
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    I have personally commented on any number of my friend's posts of this picture to tell them it's a photoshop, prividing the link that appears in the answer. None of them seem to care. Oct 10, 2011 at 14:08
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    That's okay. We can be your new friends now you realize what sort of people your old friends are :-)
    – Oddthinking
    Oct 10, 2011 at 14:47
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    I think that is a high-res screen grab from SimCity
    – going
    Oct 10, 2011 at 22:18
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    Those don't even look like people, they look like very noisy pixels.
    – Michael
    Oct 24, 2016 at 17:36

1 Answer 1

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This blog post that did some investigation on that photograph quite clearly shows that it is a photoshop job. Furthermore, the originator of the photoshop job has as much admitted to it being photoshop, and he did it to bring attention to the movement, even though he is not involved in it.

“yes its photoshopped I was hyping the event lol you do know the news is lying to us all day long. So they have CNN and Fox the 99% have me lol

Sincerely,

Jason Wettstein”

If you peruse the two blog posts (I know, not the most reliable sources), they do a lot of research for us. They link to the original photographs from google and highlight how the photoshop was done.

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    What a freaking genius.
    – Sklivvz
    Oct 9, 2011 at 8:47
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    Ahh. The Michael Moore defense: "Their lies justify my lies."
    – JohnFx
    Oct 11, 2011 at 4:39
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    @Sklivvz - was that a comment on the quality of the photoshop, on the idea behind it, or on Larian's investigation? :)
    – user5341
    Feb 2, 2012 at 18:05
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    Note that the Google link now has updated photography that no longer matches the June 2011 photos used for the "Occupy" image. The main point of the Tim Parkinson investigation (first link) is that the June 2011 Google photo and the "Occupy" image have all the same cars in exactly the same places. May 5, 2020 at 18:02

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