Does a social media video of three young women fighting off multiple men in a tunnel passageway depict an actual event involving Israeli girls -- or, depending on different versions using the same video, French paramilitary women or Turkish girls? No, that's not true: It's a staged skit, and the fight is fake. The video features trained professionals and was…
Does an image shared on social media document a 2023 attack on a French Jewish woman in her home during this year's escalation of Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the Middle East? No, that's not true: The photo predates the 2023 Hamas-Israel war. It was taken in 2017 in Michigan. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known…
Does a video shared to X in November 2023 show a "Hamas supporter" burning "the flags of France" in Paris? No, that's not true: Using visual clues shown in the video and a staff translator, Lead Stories determined that the footage was filmed in Tangier, Morocco -- not Paris. The clues led us to the intersection where the protest took…
Does a nighttime video on social media showing a large group of people marching down a street depict a pro-Palestinian protest in France? No, that's not true: It shows soccer fans in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The video was shot on October 5, 2023, two days before the start of the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict. The claim was implied in a post…
Does a viral social media video show an Iranian attack on a "petrol pump" in Israel in 2023? No, that's not true: The footage is from 2014 and showed an explosion at a gas station in Makhachkala, capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan. The explosion did not happen during the October 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict. It occurred years earlier and…
Did star tennis player Venus Williams receive a standing ovation for "refusing to play a trans woman"? No, that's not true: The claim came from an article on a website that's part of a satirical network. The publishing network's Facebook page says "Nothing on this page is real." The claim appeared in a post on Facebook (archived here) on October…
Did Dr. Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist who has repeatedly made anti-COVID-19 vaccine statements, successfully discredit the World Health Organization (WHO) and the global health community's approach to COVID-19 treatment during a speech in Strasbourg, France, on September 13, 2023? No, that's not true: McCullough bases his claims on rejected scientific papers with methodological flaws and long-debunked assertions. The physician…
Does this video show images of flooding in Berlin "right now"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories was able to identify most of these scenes and none show flooding in Berlin. While several clips showing flooding from the summer of 2023, much of the footage is from the 2021 European flash floods in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany as…
Did Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who has repeatedly made anti-COVID-19 vaccine statements, officially appear before the European Parliament and call for a "total recall" of COVID vaccines on September 13, 2023? No, that's not true: McCullough was reportedly at an event that was held in a parliamentary building but on a day when no official committee meetings were scheduled.…
Did Bill Clinton and Pope Francis call for "urgent depopulation" to save the planet? No, that's not true: The pope and former President Clinton had a public conversation in September 2023 during the Clinton Global Initiative 2023 meeting where they spoke about climate change but never discussed "urgent depopulation," according to the official transcripts of the event. The website that…
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inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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