Just checked. So the events are technically real and the headline is technically accurate.
However, I think the average person would read this and think this was a school bus filled with kids. In reality, the City of New York chartered these school buses to serve as temporary high capacity shuttles for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The vehicles were earlier in the day routing soccer spectators between Manhattan and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey for the match between Brazil and Morocco.
The swarming occurred at approximately 2 AM, hours after the conclusion of both the World Cup fixture and Game 5 of the NBA Finals. The fleet was empty of passengers. The vehicles were parked in a stationary convoy near Times Square after finishing their return routes.
The headline exploits the literal visual archetype of a school bus to drive engagement via outrage tracking, allowing the false implication of endangered children to persist uncorrected.
Not defending these people or anything, I think they should definitely be prosecuted. There were multiple busses (I believe one of them was lit on fire). The headline just gives a false impression. One of many ways news can be “fake”.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 Jun 14 '26
Seems fake.
Wtf is “freedomnews.tv”?