Did Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins make a statement that opens with "Let go the people who are not prepared to love you. This is the hardest thing you will have to do in your life and it will also be the most important thing"? No, that's not true: The quote originated from an essay by writer Brianna Wiest. The…
Does a widely shared image show a nighttime photo of Mbabane, the capital city of Eswatini? No, that's not true: the city shown is Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on September 6, 2021. It features an image of a city at night with a caption that reads: Goodnight 🌃 Africa, from…
Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and many others make confessions in military tribunals? No, that's not true: A video does not show a military tribunal with Pelosi and Schumer on trial. Instead, it's a photograph of Pelosi and Schumer at the U.S. Capitol in 2020 overlaid with audio of people talking about conspiracy theories regarding…
Did American film director Martin Scorsese endorse the Zack Snyder version of the movie "Justice League"? No, that's not true: The photo of Scorsese holding "Zack Snyder's Justice League" is nowhere to be found on Scorsese's verified Instagram account. The photo matches one from a Rolex promotional shoot, found in a SwissWatchExpo.com article titled, "Martin Scorsese Rolex Watch Collection." The…
Did a Chinese restaurant advertise giving customers 95% off their lunch total if you show them a vaccination card? No, that's not true: The sign was made by a prank website where you can create your own Chinese restaurant sign. The story originated from an Instagram post published on September 5, 2021. The sign read: LUNCH: $150 (GET 95% OFF…
Does footage released after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan show the insurgents using anti-aircraft weaponry? No, that's not true: The footage is from the video game Arma 3. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published by Military Videos on September 6, 2021. It opened: Anti-aircraft weapons and drones are also suspected to have fallen to the Afghan…
Is there a giant U-shaped skyscraper in New York that is so big a plane can easily fly between its uprights? No, that's not true: This image of a large building in Manhattan is just an architectural design for a proposed building that had not been built as of September 2021. The claim appeared as a Facebook post (archived here)…
Does a viral image show two bullets that "collided" during the Battle of Gallipoli? No, that's not true: In addition to the lack of the expected rifling marks on one of the bullets, ballistics experts who reviewed the image were not convinced that the bullets "collided." The image of a bullet going through another bullet that is used to make…
Does this photo show a Detroit broadcast meteorologist wearing an ankle monitor device parole officers install on convicts to track their whereabouts? No, that's not true: The broadcaster shown is Jaime Travers, of Fox2 St. Louis. A meme that has been recirculated since 2018 shows a meteorologist wearing a hands-free headset's transceiver/battery/antenna pack on her ankle. This post, with comments…
Were "senators" arrested at Arizona and does this mean that Trump is in trouble? No, that's not true: This nonsensical headline is clickbait intended to trick people into watching the video and joining the group promoted in the caption. One Arizona state senator, Tony Navarrete, was arrested on August 5, 2021, in connection with an investigation into suspected sexual conduct…
Has an Arizona Republican's door-knocking campaign and back-of-the-envelope estimate proved there were "173,104 lost votes and 96,389 ghost votes" in Maricopa County's 2020 election? No, that's not true: Even if every person answering every door told the truth and every canvasser entered their answers correctly, the real estate agent's claim uses rough reckoning, not field-tested methods of extrapolation. The Maricopa…
Did former President Donald Trump end President Joe Biden's antifa meeting with a riot and did Biden say "sorry" to troops and resign? No, none of that is true: This is a clickbait headline that is not supported by the video it purports to summarize. Biden did not meet with antifa, and Trump did not end the purported meeting with…
Did Donald Trump return to the presidency, removing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris? No, that's not true: This is a clickbait headline that is not supported by the video connected to it. The purpose of the misleading headline is to trick viewers into watching the monetized video and to draw potential new members to the group advertised…
Is H3O2 a purified version of water? No, that's not true: H3O2 is a temporary, fraction-of-a-second association in water. This short-term association has no effect on the properties of water, the director of McGill's Office for Science and Society told Lead Stories. Joe Schwarcz also noted that, "Any claim that any sort of 'structured water' has health benefits is pure…
Are women fertile for roughly 24 days a year? No, that's misleading: The fertility window for women is approximately four to seven days a month, totaling 48 to 84 days a year, according to medical experts. Ovulation is usually one to two days a month, which is roughly 24 days but that is not the only time a woman is…
