CLAIM: The United Nations has replaced all of its members’ flags with Pride flags.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The photo shows Pride flags displayed at Rockefeller Center, not the United Nations headquarters or any other U.N. property. While the New York City center does regularly display the flags of the 193 U.N. member states, it also routinely swaps them out.
THE FACTS: Social media users are twisting the facts to erroneously suggest the United Nations itself took the unusual step of replacing its members’ flags with Pride flags. “The United Nations replaces all 193 country flags with LGBT flags,” reads text on an image shared on Instagram. One upload was paired with a caption calling it “ridiculous.”
But the flags in the photo are not at the United Nations headquarters.
Searches show the photo appears on the media repository Wikimedia Commons, where it is dated 2019 and indicates it was taken at nearby Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown, Manhattan.
In addition to the fact that displaying Pride flags isn’t new to Rockefeller Center, the flagpoles are often used to carry flags for different occasions.
The flagpoles at the center carry white-and-gold flags in the winter, for example, and in April carried flags printed with food-inspired artwork from the public, according to the center. They’ve also been changed to display all U.S. flags.
The U.N. also confirmed it has not made changes to the flags of its member states at its headquarters.
“The photo does not show flags outside of the United Nations,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in an email. “It appears to be flags outside of Rockefeller Center. The only flags that fly outside of the UN compound are those of the 193 member states, the two official observers and the flag of the organization itself.”
That set up has remained since 1945, Dujarric said.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
