Have you seen viral videos showing dogs being rescued from train or subway tracks? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such videos recently and found that many of them were created using artificial intelligence. They do not show real people risking their lives to save their real pets. This article is part of a series of stories examining various…
Does a video show Indian people dumping plastic waste into a river? No, that's not true: The video does not show garbage dumping but the final religious ritual of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, Ganesh Visarjan, where idols made for this purpose are immersed in water. The environmental impact of the festival can vary depending on what the statues and decorations…
Does a video show a real incident where a flight attendant pulls a blanket off a woman who says she has a baby, revealing a lynx on a plane? No, that's not true: The video is a skit created by online content creators. The social media account that originated the skit includes a disclaimer stating that the page's "videos are…
Does a real video show an actual subway line collapse that happened in Taiwan? No, that's not true: the Hive Moderation AI detection tool rated the video as 99.9% likely to be AI-generated. There are no credible sources that have reported on such an incident. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) made on X by @ai_videoss, published on…
Did Italian newspaper La Repubblica publish an article saying that one of the 2027 French presidential candidates, Édouard Philippe, acquired a villa for 15 million euros? No, that's not true: The newspaper denied it. Lead Stories found no credible sources confirming the claim. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by the @Elissamaiss account on August…
Is there a real video of Rep. Nancy Mace dancing and grimacing in a sexy black dress? No, that's not true: The original video was posted by a comedian on Instagram. The video has been doctored to add Mace's face and arm tattoos to the footage. The claim appeared in an Aug. 20, 2026, video posted on X account @SpencerHakimian…
Do videos show a migrant toppling a cross and a burning church in Ceuta, Spain? No, that's not true: Neither video used to support the claim is from the Spanish enclave. The first shows an incident from July 2026 in West Bengal, India, while the second shows a fire at a convent in Cuenca, central Spain, in May 2024. The…
Is a meme that shows a mugshot of a woman accused of herding goats through a Walmart while drinking margaritas from a jug a real news story? No, that's not true: The original meme appears to have originated on a satire account. The mugshots used in various posts are either of real women who were arrested for unrelated charges or…
Did German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung report that Saxony-Anhalt Minister-President Sven Schulze was somehow connected to abduction of three Afghan children? No, that's not true: A search across the Süddeutsche Zeitung website showed no such report. Lead Stories found no articles on other news websites mentioning the story either. The claim appeared in a post (archived here, here and here) on…
Does a real video show a bike rider swerving toward pedestrians before being pushed to the ground? No, that's not true: An AI detection tool concluded that the video showing the incident was generated using artificial intelligence, assigning it a 97.4% confidence score. The video also contains visual glitches that are common indicators of synthetic media. The claim appeared in…
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