Are some black metal fences put up in San Francisco in November 2023 aimed at preventing people from breaking into buildings and stealing? No, that's not true: These fences were a component of security measures for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, from November 11 to November 17, 2023, and were limited to specific city zones.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on November 13, 2023, under the title (translated from Romanian to English by Lead Stories staff): "San Francisco - American Democracy. I don't want this in Romania 😡."
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Nov 20 11:47:00 2023 UTC)
In the video, the speaker describes what American democracy, which Romania aims to adopt, looks like (as translated):
They ended up building fences around buildings. Let me be clear, this is not a protest. They do this so that people will stop breaking in and stealing as usual.
He says "this is how Romania is going to look like if we open the borders," with "black people, Arab people, all kinds of races" committing crimes.
The barricades in the TikTok video were erected in San Francisco as part of security protocols around the Moscone Center and Fairmont Hotel for the APEC summit from November 11 to November 17, 2023, as media reported and the San Francisco website said.
Several gatherings of the international summit, drawing thousands of dignitaries, diplomats, delegates and world leaders, took place this year at the Moscone Convention Center. As part of the summit, President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Woodside, California.
Lead Stories performed a Google Lens reverse image search on November 16, 2023, revealing that a building in the video corresponds to the Werqwise workspace situated at 149 New Montgomery St., near the Moscone Convention Center.
CBS News Bay Area reported on November 19, 2023, that the additional security measures were being dismantled as the summit ended and "businesses see a slow return to normal."
