We agree with some very prominent people. Here's our proposal...
Fact Checking Day on April 2, 2026 marks almost a year since Lead Stories published our last fact check as part of Meta's Third-Party Fact Checking Partnership.
Since that day we've published over 1500 fact checks on our U.S. website on topics ranging from fake Epstein Files emails mentioning Elon Musk, AI generated or enhanced imagery that went viral in the wake of the deaths of Charlie Kirk, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, made-up stories about over 500 U.S. celebrities that were largely created in Vietnam, hoaxes about the Super Bowl and TPUSA halftime shows and in recent weeks countless examples of AI-generated slop, fake videos and wild rumors about the current Iran conflict.
(Elon Musk retweeting a post with a screenshot of a fact check about himself)
Anecdotally, in all that time we have encountered maybe five user contributed Community Notes on Facebook and Instagram. Several of them contained links to our fact checks or to the work of colleagues at other fact checking organizations. As Meta's Oversight Board recently noted, there are indeed "serious doubts about the extent to which community notes can meaningfully address misinformation".
So yes. Fact checking still matters.
As recently as March 16, 2026, President Trump was complaining about unnamed "Fake News Media" outlets creating and spreading AI-generated footage of burning buildings and ships:
Buildings and Ships that are shown to be on fire are not -- It's FAKE NEWS, generated by A.I. For instance, Iran, working in close coordination with the Fake News Media, shows our great USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier, one of the largest and most prestigious Ships in the World, burning uncontrollably in the Ocean. Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at -- Iran knows better than to do that! The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!
Should all false information be deleted or removed from the internet and is posting or creating it the equivalent of "treason"? I wouldn't want to go that far. Being able to freely communicate false or unconfirmed information is an essential part of the "Freedom of Speech" protected from interference by Congress under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
That same First Amendment also mentions "Freedom of the Press", which protects journalists and fact checkers who want to loudly shout: "Extra, Extra! That claim that guy is making over there is false! We have the evidence! Read all about it!"
Even X is now coming round to the idea of better labeling AI generated content about the Iran war, with Nikita Bier, their Head of Product posting on March 3, 2026:
Starting now, users who post AI-generated videos of an armed conflict--without adding a disclosure that it was made with AI--will be suspended from Creator Revenue Sharing for 90 days. Subsequent violations will result in a permanent suspension from the program.
(Apparently they are still fine with people posting unlabeled AI war slop as long as they aren't making money off it through their Creator Revenue Sharing program. But it is a good first step and I applaud them for it.)
Then again, the AI labels on X, just like on most other platforms, are often small and insufficiently prominent. Grandpa can't see your small, grey bit of text on a white or light-grey background and he doesn't know the meaning of "AI" or "AI Info" or what that cute logo or watermark means.
(Actual AI labels on several major platforms, true size.)
Here's a revolutionary suggestion: why not make the labels bigger, more informative and more legible? And no, there is no need to remove, cover or censor anything. All we are suggesting is to prominently add *more* information, preferably with verifiable, named sources. You know, journalism?
(The difference between fact checking and censorship, illustrated.)
And why stop at AI? If you know a picture has been photoshopped, a statistic has been made-up or a photo shows an old event and not the "current thing", why not tell people about that too? Preferably as soon as you become aware of it, and not after it has already gone viral. Why wait until various partisans reach consensus on what extra information can and can't be shown under a Community Notes system?
Just show the information, with the sources, and let people make up their own mind.
There are people out there whose job it is to figure out if something is real or not and who will happily bring you the receipts. They're called fact checkers. And we're ready to help.
Happy fact checking day!
