Springfield

Did dozens of celebrities suddenly all post a "positive update" on Facebook after a recent medical procedure or treatment? No, that's not true: The posts, often accompanied by images of the celebrity in question and a quote about "pushing through" a "few health challenges" or asking to "spare a prayer" were mass produced by a network of Facebook pages and…

Did Keanu Reeves, Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and many others say that children should be raised according to "traditional values" avoiding "LGBTQ themes"? No, that's not true: This is a fake ragebait story claiming that many fans are now boycotting celebrities over something they never said. Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by a…

Did Kevin Costner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jared Goff or any celebrities donate millions of dollars to support the funeral arrangements for four of the six U.S. servicemembers killed in a drone strike in Kuwait? No, that's not true: The false claim that at least 37 sports and entertainment celebs made such donations was created and distributed by a spam factory…

Did Rowan Atkinson, Barbra Streisand, Jon Bon Jovi and Stevie Nicks, and other celebrities all give the same speech to Mark Zuckerberg and a roomful of the rich and powerful on Dec. 20, 2025, saying "you are not creating change -- you are creating noise"? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by…

Did episode 12 of season 6 of The Simpsons predict the death of Hulk Hogan, as a viral TikTok video claimed? No, that's not true: That episode is titled "Homer The Great" and Hulk Hogan did not appear in it. The video contained several artifacts that point towards the use of artificial intelligence as well as a tiny caption that…

Does a viral video show a "Massive Tornado Hits Springfield Illinois Today July 20, 2025"? No, that's not true: That video clip has been online since at least July 2024. It showed news coverage of Typhoon Yagi striking China's island province of Hainan. The mislabelled video was posted July 20, 2025 to TikTok (archived here) on the @disaster.world1 account, titled…

Did "The Simpsons" predict that April 29, 2025 will become "the day everything stops"? No, that's not true: The internet rumor originated from an account that posts "fictional stories". The video never used a direct video citation from the series. Lead Stories analysis of the visual sequence suggested it was created with generative AI. The claim appeared in a post…

Was the explosion near Roosevelt Mall in Philadelphia on January 31, 2025, not caused by an airplane crash but by a missile or comet? No, that's not true: The Federal Aviation Administration and multiple news outlets confirmed that the incident involved an aircraft. Global flight tracker Flight Radar 24 said the aircraft fell vertically at high speed. Other video angles…

Does a video show real images from a 2007 episode of "The Simpsons" that predicted the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires? No, that's not true: None of the images in the video posted on social media were shown in the episode cited in the video, episode 12 of season 18 of "The Simpsons." The images used in the video on social…

Does a video show a Haitian man in Springfield, Ohio, cutting up an animal or a pet with a machete in public? No, that's not true: Police said the person who shot the video told them the man was cutting up "a big ass ham." The Springfield Police Division said there is no evidence to support the claim that "a…