Does a real video contain "new audio" which reveals President Donald Trump has "worsening incontinence"? No, that's not true: The audio track of a video was edited to add farting noises and text captioning which are not part of the original video. The altered video was first published on TikTok by a joke account where it is no longer publicly…
Did the White House publish a post commemorating the tenth anniversary of the death of Harambe the Gorilla? Yes, that's true: The official White House account on X (formerly Twitter) made a post on May 27, 2026, on Harambe's birthday, and the eve of the 10-year anniversary of his death at the Cincinnati Zoo. The post (archived here) was published…
Did Israeli-based news outlet Haaretz report that Zelenskyy's former associate Timur Mindich fled to Israel carrying "800kg of gold" on a private jet? No, that's not true: The claim shared in viral posts originated from a counterfeit website that mimicked Haaretz. No credible news organizations reported on "800kg of gold" supposedly carried by Mindich on board the plane bound for…
Does a real video show a woman stuck upside down in a water slide? No, that's not true: The clip is digitally generated, not authentic footage. An AI detection tool concluded that the video was 100% likely AI-generated, and a visual analysis revealed additional AI artifacts. Lead Stories found no credible news coverage or eyewitness video of such an incident.…
Does a viral video show alleged Muslim crowds attending Hajj 2026? No, that's not true: An AI-Generated Content Detection tool concluded the video was 95.5% likely made by AI. It contained a watermark pointing to a specific generative video model. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published by @dom_lucre on X on May 26, 2026. It opened: 🔥🚨DEVELOPING:…
Does a viral image confirm that now X has "sovereign settings" that allow users to opt out of the social media platform's rules, including moderation? No, that's not true: A search across X's Terms of Service page did not produce a match. Neither did X's Help Center or its revenue-sharing information. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published…
Is there a controversial game called Plantation Simulator available to buy on Steam, where players motivate Black workers by whipping them? Yes, that's true: Plantation Simulator was released on Steam on May 12, 2026. The developer describes the game's content this way: "In this game, you will be whipping black people to keep your farm productive, If you whip your…
Did police find a male prostitute dead in the Indiana home of Mike Pence? No, that's not true: There is no news reporting of an incident such as this. This false news story originated from a Facebook page that lists its category as "comedian". The story has spread to other social media platforms without the comedy disclaimer. The story originated…
Did Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and chairman of Block, join the AI company Anthropic? No, that's not true: There have been no news announcements that Dorsey has joined Anthropic. After the true announcement that Andrej Karpathy, the co-founder of OpenAI, was joining Anthropic, a trend of copycat joke announcements popped up on social media. Among the copycat posts…
Is the story of a Memphis man arrested for scratching off every scratch-off ticket at a Germantown Exxon station real? No, that's not true: Lead Stories did not find any records corroborating the tale, which originated on social media platforms. Two AI detection tools concluded the text was AI-generated. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published by @Soaringeagle45…
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