&Quot;The Onion&Quot;

Lead Stories is sad to learn of the announcement of the passing of Pablo Reyes Santiago (also via his Facebook account) and we offer our deepest condolences to his friends and family. Although he may not have realized it, Pablo was instrumental to the history of Lead Stories as a fact checking website. He was so famous for his pranks…

Do viral images authentically capture the massive destruction caused by Hurricane Milton at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida? No, that's not true: Those pictures were generated by AI and first posted on a website with a satire label. On October 11, 2024, Disney announced it had reopened its theme parks. The claim appeared in a video (archived here)…

Did Taylor Swift lose 17 million followers after posting an endorsement for Kamala Harris on her Instagram account? No, that's not true: Numbers show that Swift actually gained followers shortly after her endorsement. The account that posted this claim has "#Satire" and "#Parody" in their bio. The claim appeared in a now-deleted post on X (archived here) on September 15,…

Did Neverland Ranch investigators discover the real corpse of Michael Jackson in 2005? No, that's not true: The source for the information in the video on TikTok is an article published on The Onion, a well-known satire website. There is no attribution to The Onion for the information in the video. The news article shown as the source for details…

Does a video shared on social media show authentic news coverage confirming that Disney child stars are genetically engineered humans? No, that's not true: The segment comes from the satirical website The Onion. The video was posted on The Onion in 2008. The claim reappeared in a post (archived here) on Instagram on February 8, 2024. The caption began: Had…

Did Walt Disney World remove "all American flags" and replace them with "the Pride flag" to honor lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights? No, that's not true: As of May 25, 2023, the Walt Disney Company had not announced such a change ahead of LGBTQ Pride Month, the annual June commemoration of the LGBTQ+ rights struggle. The claim…

Did former Fox News host Tucker Carlson file suit against Whoopi Goldberg and "The View," the TV talk show she moderates, for dehumanizing remarks? No, that's not true: This article was published by the Dunning-Kruger Times, one of several satire sites run by Christopher Blair, who describes himself as a "liberal troll." These websites have disclaimers explaining that "Everything on…

Did the state of Ohio introduce a new death penalty procedure that "quickly and humanely rips off the heads of death row inmates using powerful robotic arms"? No, that's not true: This spoof news video is from ONN, the Onion News Network -- the video branch of theonion.com, a satire news website. The two-minute-long spoof news video titled "Ohio Replaces…

Did Disney decide to remove Mickey Mouse as the official mascot in 2024 because the famous mouse's copyright is going to expire -- and will the purple dragon Figment take Mickey's place? No, that's not true: The claim, along with a digitally edited photo, originated on a satire website called mousetrapnews.com that specializes in fake stories about Disney parks. Clear…

Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launch an anti-smoking effort with a video ad that uses the tagline "It's Gay to Smoke"? No, that's not true: The video is from a fake story created more than a decade ago by the satire news site The Onion, and the CDC told Lead Stories the agency had never produced…