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Fact check: All national Park service reports 13.14 million at no King's day protests
1. Summary of the results
The original statement claiming that "all national Park service reports 13.14 million at no King's day protests" appears to be factually incorrect based on the available evidence.
The analyses reveal that the National Park Service stopped releasing official crowd counts for events on the National Mall in the 1990s due to controversy over the accuracy of these counts [1]. This means the National Park Service would not have issued any official report with the 13.14 million figure claimed in the statement.
Instead, the 13.14 million figure appears to come from protest organizers themselves, not the National Park Service. One source indicates that "nationwide, 50501 said 13.14 million people joined together in more than 2,300 'No Kings Day' events" [2]. However, other sources provide conflicting attendance estimates:
- Organizers claimed over 5 million participants in the protests [3]
- An independent data analyst estimated 4-6 million protesters across the U.S. [4]
- The American Civil Liberties Union and organizers claimed more than 5 million people participated in over 2,100 rallies and protests [5]
2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints
The original statement omits several crucial pieces of context:
- The National Park Service has an established policy of not releasing crowd count estimates, making the attribution in the statement impossible [1]
- Multiple conflicting attendance figures exist, ranging from 4-6 million to over 13 million, depending on the source
- The White House downplayed the scale of turnout at the anti-Trump protests, presenting an opposing viewpoint to the organizers' claims [4]
- Different organizations and entities benefit from promoting higher or lower attendance figures - protest organizers benefit from inflating numbers to demonstrate political momentum, while opposing political figures benefit from minimizing the scale
The statement also fails to mention that the Crowd Counting Consortium promised to provide an independent estimate, which would offer a more neutral assessment than organizer claims [5].
3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement
The statement contains significant factual errors and potential misinformation:
- False attribution: The claim that the National Park Service issued this report is demonstrably false, as the agency stopped providing such counts decades ago [1]
- Inflated figures: The 13.14 million figure appears to be the highest estimate available and comes from interested parties (organizers) rather than neutral sources
- Lack of source verification: The statement presents organizer claims as official government data without proper attribution
This type of misattribution could be intentionally misleading to give protest attendance figures more credibility by falsely associating them with a government agency. Protest organizers and political movements benefit from inflating participation numbers to demonstrate grassroots support and political momentum, while opposing political figures benefit from questioning or minimizing these figures to reduce their perceived impact.