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In September 2015, social media users in Europe and the United States debated the merits of accepting an influx of refugees from war-torn regions such as Syria. While some expressed sympathy and willingness to help, others fostered and spread rumors claiming asylum seekers were Islamic State operatives in disguise. An expression of the latter viewpoint was published to a Facebook group based in Malta on 13 September 2015, along with three photographs: Users of forums on which the rumors were spread pointed out logical inconsistencies with the information as it was presented, such as the notion that folks fleeing regions beset by war would so soon be sending for the delivery of patio sets via freight: Versions of this rumor were accompanied by still frames taken from the mislabeled video embedded above, which did not depict material being shipped to refugees in Greece (or elsewhere in Europe), but rather embargoed arms being smuggled from Turkey to Libya that were interdicted by the Greek coast guard: A 6 September 2015 article from the Independent similarly reported that: So while the photographs shown here were captured from video of a September 2015 Greek coast guard weapons seizure, the arms in question were heading to Libya, not to refugee camps in Europe. In September 2016, the images resurfaced on social media with a slightly different purported context: The smuggled arms had a compelling purported connection to Yavex USA and Fort Meyers, Florida in their September 2016 iteration, and some additional images were added to the original set. However, the original claim and images remained misrepresented, albeit with a novel hook inspiring American social media users to again share the rumor.
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