Is Zagreb home to the world's tallest tower, an iconic bridge, a rice paddy and a Hindu temple? No, that's not true: A video is pretending that iconic scenes from around the world are present in the Croatian capital.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on June 23, 2023, under the title "It's just a small town in Croatia, how special could it be." Its hashtags are:
ZAGREB❤️ #croatia #zagreb #hrvatska
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Aug 18 20:29:34 2023 UTC)
The video opens with a zoom into Zagreb on Google Earth followed by five video clips from around the world accompanied by a text caption in the top left-hand corner that says "ZAGREB:"
The first video clip shows the world's tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, not Zagreb.
The second video clip shows a rice paddy in Indonesia, not Zagreb.
The third video clip shows the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, Spain, not Zagreb.
The fourth video clip shows the Manhattan Bridge in New York City, not Zagreb.
The fifth video clip shows the Pura Segara Ulun Danu Batur temple in Bali, not Zagreb.
The video is set to the same music track as in a video about a beach in Split, Croatia. Clicking on the track shows there are more than 250 similar TikTok videos that mostly follow the same format and captions; starting on Google Earth before zooming into a location and then showing clips from places that aren't the quoted location. This suggests the music track is used as part of a wider misinformation trend.
Lead Stories doesn't know the motivation behind the creation of these clips and whether they are designed as clickbait or part of an internet subculture. However, we can verify that the videos are misleading and contain fake information.
