After violent protests against Covid-19 vaccine mandates in Melbourne, social media posts claimed police used a sonic weapon to make demonstrators soil themselves. The claim is false; the posts used a photo from a 2018 prank video by an Australian YouTuber. An acoustic weapons expert told AFP it was "improbable" that infrasound technology could have the effect described in the posts. There have been no official reports that Victoria police used sonic weapons at the protest.

"Victorian Police were the first force in Australia to deploy the so-called ‘Brown Note Acoustic Weapon’," reads an Instagram post on November 20, 2021.

"The brown note is an infrasonic frequency that causes humans to lose control of their bowels due to resonance. This also causes the loss of bladder. Why isn’t the MSN reporting this #freedom #Melbourneprotest."

The image in the post appears to show a man with soiled trousers.

It circulated online after demonstrators clashed with riot police in Australia's second-largest city following a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for construction workers.

The post also claims that 5G technology "will be used to kill, control, and fight everyone" and that people are being "injected with graphene oxide" -- a reference to Covid-19 vaccines.

AFP has debunked similar false claims during the pandemic here and here.

Some social media users appeared to be misled by the post.

"They are using weapons of war against their own citizens. This is evil," one person commented.

"That’s...

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