Did Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis post a picture at an event showing George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist who is often the subject of conspiracy theories, in the background? No, that's not true: The original image, posted in a tweet by media personality John Cardillo, was altered to include a person resembling Soros. The claim appeared in…
Did George Soros say "Those who oppose my agenda are white supremacists"? No, that's not true: There is no verifiable evidence or credible source that supports the assertion that Soros said this or that the statement attributed to him is a close paraphrase of something said by the Hungarian-born American financier, philanthropist and activist, who is also one of the…
Do images circulating on social media show press photos of Anthony Fauci under arrest and in police custody? No, that's not true: Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has not been arrested. These are not photos of a real incident but are images generated by an artificial intelligence program. Jack Posobiec posted the…
Is Hungary preparing to prosecute "lifelong Nazi" George Soros? No, that's not true: The claim, posted by a prolific publisher of fake news, is based on a single anonymous source. It repeats the oft-debunked claim that financier and philanthropist Soros was a Nazi. In fact, Soros, who is Jewish, lived through the Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1944-45, when he…
Did liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race? No, that's not true: In remarks to the Munich Security Conference in February 2023, Soros said DeSantis is "likely to be a Republican candidate," but he didn't say he was endorsing the Sunshine State's governor or wanted him to run.…
Did a "deep state" conspiracy lead to Romania's arrest of former kickboxing champion and online celebrity Andrew Tate on December 29, 2022? No, that's not true: Romanian authorities have told Lead Stories that Tate was arrested following an investigation that began in April 2022. No credible evidence exists to support the claim of a "deep state" conspiracy, which was published…
The year is almost over, so it is good to look back. First, the numbers, as of December 15, 2022. This year we have published 1,555 fact checks in English (so far ...) 283 fact checks about COVID misinformation; 244 debunks of Russian propaganda and false claims about the invasion of Ukraine; 140 debunks of false claims about election fraud,…
Did billionaire philanthropist George Soros fund the purchase of voting machines in order to rig the 2022 midterm elections? No, that's not true: Elections are funded by taxpayer dollars and Soros has no connections to voting machine or voting software companies. The claim appeared in a November 6, 2022, Instagram post that uses a long string of hashtags for a…
Was "Chief Justice John Robert" arrested as of August 23, 2022? No, that's not true: The caption in this post is clickbait. There is no publicly available evidence to substantiate the claim, the accompanying video does not mention such an arrest and multiple errors suggest a credible news source did not create this post. The claim originated in a Facebook…
Was George Soros banned from Hungary, his birth country? No, that's not true: According to a communications director at the Open Society Foundations, where George Soros is the founder and the chair, as of this writing he has not been banned from Hungary. The claim appeared in a Facebook post with a video on August 3, 2022, under the title…
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inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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