Claim: A photo of a man driving an e-scooter while sitting on a gas tank was taken in Malta

Verdict: The photo was taken in Italy or Sicily back in August 2021 and does not show a scene from Malta’s roads.

A photo shared on Facebook showing a man riding down the road on an e-scooter while sitting on a gas tank went viral on Tuesday afternoon, spreading across several Facebook groups and setting off a spate of anti-immigrant rhetoric.

One Facebook commenter described the photo as “a taste of a third-world country”. 

The photo was first posted by a Facebook page called “This is Malta”. It was posted without comment, accompanied only by a clapping hands emoji, quickly receiving hundreds of likes, shares and comments, and eventually making its way to other corners of social media.

The post published on Tuesday afternoon.

But some commenters were sceptical and the photo does not show a scene from Malta’s roads.

Foreign licence plate

The most obvious clue is that a white van visible in the photo’s background carries a licence plate that is clearly not Maltese.

The registration number contains seven characters, unlike Maltese licence plates which only carry six characters.

The van’s licence plate, made up of an initial two letters followed by a further five numbers and letters. is instead consistent with those of Italian vehicles.

While it’s not uncommon for cars with Italian licence plates to be on Malta’s roads, other elements in the photo suggest that the photo is unlikely to have been taken in Malta.

Some of the buildings in the picture, particularly the one with a domed roof in the background do not appear to be typical of Malta’s streetscapes. And although the street is not entirely visible in the photo, both the van and the e-scooter driver appear to be driving on the right side of the road, unlike in Malta where vehicles drive on the left.

Italians did it first

A reverse image search on the photo gives more credence to the idea that the photo was taken in Italy. The photo has been shared countless times across Italian social media pages, from Facebook to Instagram and even Pinterest.

The photo even made its way to a website called Facciabuco, an Italian satirical social media platform which proudly describes itself as “the worst social media platform there is”.

In most posts, the scene in the photo is described as taking place in Sicily, most likely in Catania, although some other posts have attempted to attribute it to Romania.

The photo was shared by several Italian sites as far back as the summer of 2021.

The reverse image search also reveals that the photo is several years old. It appears to have first been shared on social media almost three years ago, in August 2021, before suddenly resurfacing in recent days.

Verdict

A photo of a man driving an e-scooter while sitting on a gas tank which went viral on Tuesday was not taken in Malta.

The photo was shared by a Facebook page named “This is Malta”, sparking a series of derogatory comments about migrants in Malta.

But the photo was most likely taken in Italy or Sicily and was first shared to social media back in August 2021.

This claim is therefore false, as the evidence clearly refutes the claim.

The Times of Malta fact-checking service forms part of the Mediterranean Digital Media Observatory (MedDMO) and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), an independent observatory with hubs across all 27 EU member states that is funded by the EU’s Digital Europe programme. Fact-checks are based on our code of principles. 

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