The 2024 Paris Olympics draw to a close today, one of the most covered and discussed events of the year. Amid the flood of information, media blacklisting platform NewsGuard sought to bolster its image as an authority on “disinformation” and “misinformation” with a series on “false Olympics claims.”
In a July 30 edition of its “Reality Check” newsletter, NewsGuard identified three false narratives around the Olympics that it claimed were being spread by a mix of “far-right” and “pro-Kremlin” accounts. All three concerned issues that have been of particular concern to the political right in recent years: crime, Islamist terrorism, and the spread of sexually charged LGBTQ material into supposedly child-friendly environments.
On crime, NewsGuard claimed to have “identified viral false narratives that frame Paris as a crime-ridden cesspool,” highlighting a false infographic showing a purported spike in street crime in Paris, and highlighting claims made on social media about athletes being robbed, including the following tweets from X user @EuropeInvasion:
NewsGuard notes that the footage, depicting the vandalized vehicle of Australian cyclist Logan Martin, was not from Paris. Martin’s vehicle was vandalized and robbed, but the incident occurred in Brussels, Belgium, two days before the Paris Olympics.
Given that the theft occurred to an Olympics athlete, two days before the Paris Olympics, in a city that is two hours from Paris by train, it seems reasonable to connect this incident to the Paris Olympics, even if the stated timing (“Day One of the Paris Olympics”) is partially inaccurate as it related to the Martin incident.
NewsGuard also neglects to mention that the rest of the tweet, regarding the theft of “rings, watches, wallets” at the Paris Olympics is accurate. A member of the Japanese rugby team reported that his wedding ring had been stolen from the Olympic Village, along with a necklace and cash, while members of the Argentine Olympic football team reported the theft of personal belongings, a watch, and jewelry.
@EuropeInvasion’s reference to the postponement of the Argentina-Morocco football game was also accurate: the game was postponed after Morocco fans stormed the field. On balance, the tweet’s factual claims were far more accurate that not.
Focusing exclusively on “pro-Kremlin” and “far right” accounts also risks misleading readers into the false notion that crime in the French capital is a fringe concern.
On the contrary, it is mainstream, with French president Emmanuel Macron (hardly a “far right” or “pro-Kremlin” figure) addressing the issue in a recent interview, highlighting the disproportionate about of crime committed by migrant communities:
After he promised to “tighten the rules” on immigration, journalist Caroline Roux asked him if, “like the minister of the interior” Gérald Darmanin, he saw a “link between crime and immigration.”
Mr. Macron first refused to acknowledge a “substantive link” between the two, or to “generalize.” “On the other hand, looking at (…) crime, for example in Paris, where there’s a high concentration of illegal immigration for geographical and bureaucratic reasons, it’s very evident in the crime figures,” he said, voicing concerns about “nuances” and “having a feeling for the truth” on such a “sensitive subject.”
To illustrate his claim, Mr. Macron cited a statistic: “If we look at crime in Paris today, we cannot fail to see that at least half of the crime comes from people who are foreigners, either illegal immigrants or waiting for a residence permit. In any case, they’re in a very delicate situation, often coming in through these [illegal immigration] channels.”
The link between crime and immigration – not mentioned by NewsGuard in its newsletter – may also help explain why @EuropeInvasion felt it was reasonable to connect the Brussels incident to crimes affecting Olympics athletes in Paris. Like Paris, the Belgian capital is grappling with highly similar issues of migrant crime.
Another NewsGuard Olympic fact check focuses on a story picked up by a number of news outlets, including the Daily Mail and GB News, regarding the Paris Olympics’ controversial opening ceremony, which included a performance featuring drag queens and semi-naked men during a supposedly family-friendly event.
NewsGuard correctly identifies that a photo appearing to show one of the dancer’s testicles exposed was in fact just an exposed area of skin. Yet it once again accuses “far right” accounts of spreading the story, with only one account, @RadioGenoa, identified in the report.
A review of RadioGenoa’s account, which has over 850,000 followers, shows that it predominantly posts content focusing on the problems of immigration into Europe, and Muslim immigration in particular.
Once again, it is debatable whether a focus on the problems of immigration, or even particular immigrant communities, can be considered “far right” in Europe any longer.
Large majorities of voters consider the issue to be a top concern. In the UK, for example, immigration recently became the top national issue for the public, surpassing even the economy. In the Netherlands, an anti-immigration party recently won the most amount of seats in its House of Representatives, while France’s anti-immigration National Rally party achieved the same in elections for France’s National Assembly. The election of immigration hawk Georgia Meloni in Italy in 2022 was also widely perceived as a rebuke to unchecked immigration.
While it’s still common for the legacy media to label these political movements and their supporters “far right,” the level of public support they receive suggests they have long since progressed from the fringe to the mainstream.
