2020 Black Lives Matter Protests

Did American basketball player Brittney Griner make a public statement announcing she is leaving the United States? No, that's not true: Griner's long-time agent refuted the claim in an email to Lead Stories and there are no stories about any such announcement on any news websites. The rumor first appeared in an AI-generated article published by what appeared to be…

Did protesters in Washington, D.C., riot and rush people into a house on October 28, 2023, as a video on Instagram claims to show? No, that's not true: The video is from a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest. The homeowner told television station WUSA9 at the time that he invited the protesters into his home to wait out a curfew.…

Is a video that warns about what the "deep state" could be doing to subvert democracy in the United States an official Donald Trump presidential campaign ad? No, that's not true: The caption on the screen of the video implies that it was produced and/or released by the Trump campaign but it was posted on a Twitter account whose owner…

Does the music video "Try That In A Small Town" by country music singer Jason Aldean only contain "real news footage," as he asserted in a public response to criticism that his song and video promote violence and allude to timeworn lynching threats? No, that's not true: Not every clip in the video is news footage. There are several stock…

Does the video "Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening" assemble the "forbidden puzzle pieces to reveal the big picture of what's really happening in America and beyond"? No, that's not true: The video repeats an unsubstantiated claim of a plan by global elites to replace national sovereignty with a one-world government and rehashes previously debunked false and misleading claims made by…

Did a Starbucks in downtown Denver post a sign in their window that told customers it was closed to "educate white people about their racism"? No, that's not true: That sign is a doctored image that mocks racial bias training Starbucks hosted on May 29, 2018. The training was the company's response to backlash after a store manager at a…

Did an Emergency Broadcast Alert reveal Donald Trump invoked the Insurrection Act? No, that's not true: A video makes the baseless claim that President Donald J. Trump informed the mayor of Oklahoma City that the "Insurrection Act has been enacted," and that arrests of Democratic elected officials will begin immediately. There is no evidence the president has invoked the Insurrection…

Were hundreds of new Hillary Clinton emails published on the U.S. State Department's website in recent days? No, that's not true: Although Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has pledged to release additional emails Clinton sent when she was Secretary of State, he has not yet done so. As recently as October 14, 2020, he described the release as an "ongoing…

Did the story of the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer disappear after "we found out the perps were antifa and BLM anarchists"? No, that's not true. One, the story has hardly disappeared. News outlets are continuing to cover it. And, two, authorities have never linked the men accused in the plot to either antifa or the Black…

Did the United States label antifa a terrorist group? No, that's not true. President Donald Trump has vowed to designate antifa as a "Terrorist Organization," including via Twitter, but he has not officially done so and the Justice Department has not. FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a hearing at the House of Representatives that the FBI did not consider…