Does a viral video show real reactions of the people who watched Bad Bunny's 2026 Super Bowl halftime show in the stadium? No, that's not true: The clip was marked as containing AI generated media. The video showed characteristic, AI-associated glitches such as people with three arms and two hands. The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on…
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…
Does a real photo show Donald Trump Jr. at a shooting bench with the scope of his rifle mounted backwards? No, that's not true: This image has been digitally edited. An earlier copy of the image appears in a 2024 article with the scope mounted properly. The altered image appears in a post (archived here) published on Bluesky by @mrsbettybowers…
Was a bearded Jeffrey Epstein photographed walking in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2026? No, that's not true: Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019. The image is AI-generated. Some versions of the image circulating on social media have been cropped, but the full-size image shows the Gemini AI Sparkle watermark in the lower right corner. Two cropped versions of the fake image…
Did Donald Trump really post a video on Truth Social featuring the faces of Michelle and Barack Obama superimposed on the bodies of apes? Yes, that is true: Shortly before midnight on Feb. 5, 2026 Donald Trump posted a 1-minute, 2-second video from the PatriotNewsOutlet.com. The video promoted a debunked conspiracy claim about voting machines during the 2020 election. The…
Does the size difference between two bars in a White House chart of U.S. steel production show the actual rate of growth from 2024 to 2025? No, that's not true: The bar representing 2025 is twice the size of the 2024 bar, which visually suggests a 100% increase. That's the result of what statisticians call a "truncated axis" that tends…
Is there an email conversation between Jeffrey Epstein and Satoshi Nakamoto in the released "Epstein Files" that has Nakamoto telling Epstein to "Go fuck yourself"? No, that's not true: A search of the "Epstein library" for the phrase "Dear Jeffey" from a viral image showing the supposed email only returns a single result with a different document. Other details in…
Was there an email thread with Elon Musk and Jeffrey Epstein discussing an "epic island vacation" included in the latest release from the "Epstein Files" as implied by a viral image? No, that's not true: No email with the phrase "epic island vacation" appears in the released documents. The phrase "deal withthis . thanyou" visible in the image doesn't appear…
Did U.S. President Donald Trump write on Truth Social that the documentary about his wife, Melania, will become mandatory in history classes, while calling her "Melanie"? No, that's not true: No such post could be found on his account. Lead Stories searched an archive of Trump's posts, which did not produce any evidence that the viral image showed a real…
You might have seen or heard rumors about ICE agents being deployed at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, to help provide security. The Lead Stories Rome office looked into what is actually happening, so you know what is going on if you see social media posts about it. Agents from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),…
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.
