Claim: Taylor Swift’s Eras tour film was cancelled in Israel over the Gaza conflict.
Fact: The film is being screened in Israel as scheduled. The screenshot shown in the video is authentic, but it was caused by a technical glitch on the website, not by a deliberate decision to pull the film.
On 7 November , an Instagram user @riristea_ shared a video (archive) with the caption, “Looks like Taylor Swift has pulled ‘Eras’ tour screenings in Israel until further notice.” The video is a commentary on screenshots from the official website of the film. A search for screenings in Israel on the official Eras’ website leads to an error message, as seen in one of the screenshots.
The error message, which reads as follows, “All screenings for this country are postponed until further notice.” is interpreted by the Instagram user as a withdrawal of the film from Israeli cinemas due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. She also adds that Swift has faced pressure from some of her fans to speak up in favour of a ceasefire.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check found that the film has been running as per schedule at the Israeli chain, Cinema City. The cinema’s Instagram account posted about additional and ongoing screenings on 6 November 2023 and 9 November 202,3 which proves that the claim under question is false.
The Jerusalem Post published an article on 6 November 2023, including interviews with Swift’s Israeli fans who watched the film in Jerusalem on 4 November 2023 at the same cinema.
An independent Google search by Soch Fact Check also confirmed that the film has not been taken down, and revealed that tickets for the film are available for sale in Israel as of 10 November 2023. We also used Internet Archive’s services which allowed us to see how the Eras Tour film’s website looked on any given day, and observed that it displayed Israel in the list of participating countries on 7 November 2023.
Furthermore, searching the phrase “Eras Tour film postponed in Israel” on Google, revealed a report from the entertainment website, TMZ which claims that the error message displayed in the Instagram video’s screenshot is authentic. However, the message was the result of a a technical glitch on the website, according to the report, and was not due to a deliberate decision to pull the film. As TMZ did not cite a source for its explanation on the technical glitch, the origin of the misleading screenshot is unclear.
Despite Taylor Swift being one of the world’s most well known celebrities, the lack of coverage of such a postponement by reputable media outlets also confirms that the claim is not true. Other IFCN signatory fact-checking organisations, such as PolitiFact and FactCheck.org have also debunked the claim and flagged multiple posts on Facebook and Instagram.
Virality
@riristea_’s Instagram post received more than 249,000 views, 6,820 likes and 443 comments. On X, the news was published as an image that was viewed over 2,000,000 times and shared more than 3,600 times. The claim was also shared on Tiktok, Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), where it was viewed thousands of times.
Conclusion: The claim that Taylor Swift’s Eras tour film was postponed in Israel due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza is false. The film is being screened l as per schedule.
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