One such post that went viral was about a 6-year-old child with terminal cancer in northern Germany. The video showed thousands of bikers, said to be gathered to fulfill the child’s last wish. According to the post, the boy’s final wish was to see motorcyclists circling around his house, and while initially only 30 people were expected, 20,000 motorcyclists showed up to honor the child.
Social Media Posts
The Facebook post shared a video with the following message:
“The last wish of a 6-year-old boy suffering from cancer in northern Germany was to see motorcyclists circling around his house. According to the family, about 30 people were found, but in the end, 20,000 motorcyclists volunteered. That was the child’s last happiness.”
This post quickly gained traction and went viral on Facebook.
Fact Check
Upon investigation, we analyzed the video and identified two distinct parts, suggesting that the video was compiled from two different sources.
We first conducted a reverse image search using the Invid – We Verify tool, which helped us trace the origins of the video.
Part One: The initial portion of the video was from a motorbike parade that took place on June 14th, 2021, where over a million bikers participated in a motor parade in São Paulo, Brazil. This parade was led by President Jair Bolsonaro to protest the COVID-19 lockdowns imposed by governors and mayors in Brazil. We found several news articles and reports confirming this event.
Part Two: The second part of the video shows a child sitting on a chair, waving at the motorcyclists. Through a reverse image search of the video frames, we found a similar video from July 2021. The video caption mentioned that 20,000 bikers drove to the home of a 6-year-old boy in northern Germany who was suffering from terminal cancer. His last wish was to see bikers pass by his house.
Several news reports and stock images corroborated this incident, which took place in Lower Saxony, Rhauderfehn, Germany. In fact, a tweet confirmed that the boy’s family had posted a request online asking bikers to ride past their home to cheer him up. To their surprise, nearly 15,000 bikers showed up, not 20,000 as mentioned in the viral post.
Conclusion
After our investigation, it became clear that the viral video was a combination of clips from two different events. The first part of the video was from a motorbike parade in Brazil in June 2021, organized by President Jair Bolsonaro to protest COVID-19 lockdowns. The second part was from a July 2021 event in Germany, where thousands of bikers gathered to fulfill the wish of a terminally ill 6-year-old boy.
Thus, the video shared on social media was misleading, as it combined footage from two unrelated events.
