Does a video show workers at a snack food factory in China kicking dough on the floor? No, that's not true: the video shows workers kicking a mixture used in the mass production of rubber bands. The video was lifted from a video first posted in 2022 on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, that showed the production of rubber bands.
The claim was made in a TikTok video (archived here) published by @kim33224 on January 4, 2024. The caption in Korean in the video, as translated by Lead Stories staff, reads:
Shocking Chinese Snack Factory
Everyone is surprised when they watch this video.
The yellow dough is completed after kneading it with an unknown white powder.
The dough is fed into a machine where the leather-like 'jjondegi' is cut into pieces.
The pieces of 'jjondegi' are then put on the floor, where they are kicked and mixed [by workers].
To make a new 'jjondegi,' add Chinese chili peppers to make a red sauce.
After that, put the completed 'jjondegi' and red sauce into a machine that automatically mixes and packages the food.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 10 20:08:31 2024 UTC)
'Jjondegi' (archived here) is a traditional South Korean snack often sold in convenience stores. The rectangular-shaped snack is very chewy and can be easily torn apart.
This claim is verifiably false, as parts of this footage were discovered by Lead Stories staff in a video (archived here) uploaded on Douyin on May 10, 2022. However, the video did not go viral until October 28, 2022, when another user posted similar sections of the footage. This video (archived here) was about how rubber bands are made in large production factories. It received more than 100,000 likes.
The caption in Chinese in the video reads, as translated by Lead Stories staff:
How to make rubber bands that I loved to play with when I was a child.
#rubberband #documentary
This is what the footage looked like on Douyin at the time of writing:
(Source: Douyin screenshot taken on Wed Jan 10 20:15:07 2024 UTC)
