In a guerilla campaign, someone has been replacing bus stop ads around the city with posters featuring the San Francisco Fleet Week logo, along with text and photos criticizing America’s role in Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign, which has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, many of them civilians.
Some of the posters, including one at a transit shelter on Fillmore and Oak Streets, show a photo of Aaron Bushnell, the Air Force serviceman as he self-immolated in front of the D.C. Israeli embassy in April, along with his recited message condemning Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza. Another ad, showing the USS Liberty — a Navy ship that was attacked by an Israeli aircraft in 1967 — was posted at a bus stop on Haight and Fillmore Streets.
Victor Hill, a Northern California operations manager for Clear Channel Outdoor, told Gazetteer SF that the ads were a “guerrilla attack” by an unknown party. Clear Channel Outdoor manages advertising on transit shelters and kiosks around the city.
SFMTA spokesperson Michael Roccaforte also confirmed that the ads are "unauthorized."
Among the individuals who shared the posters is Ariana Jasmine Afshar, an Oakland-based social media creator. A video she recorded of the Bushnell poster and posted to Instagram on Sunday had been seen over 120,000 times as of the afternoon of Oct. 15.
“I was a little grossed out by people celebrating Fleet Week,” Afshar told Gazetteer SF. “I can’t speak for other people, but I think that those posters gave a very direct juxtaposition of what the government celebrates rather than how the people as a majority feel.”
Afshar added that this year’s Fleet Week, in particular, felt “eerie.”
"We’re showing the airplanes and the war machine," she said. "The celebration of these planes flying around and the noises is dystopian."
An Instagram account run by Key Food Market, dedicated to its beloved corner store dog Major, also shared a video of the Bushnell ad Sunday. Clear Channel Outdoor started getting reports about the fake ads on Saturday.
While Hill said that there were ads posted around the city, it’s unclear just how many of them have popped up.
“It seems like there’s quite a few of them,” he told Gazetteer SF, adding that the company has deployed at least seven people around San Francisco Tuesday to remove the guerrilla ads. He anticipates they’ll all be taken down by Wednesday morning.
The San Francisco Fleet Week organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gazetteer SF.
Business and technology reporter Megan Rose Dickey contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 10:20 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2024 to include comment from SFMTA.
