Artificial Intelligence

Did Neil Diamond, Eminem, Coco Gauff, or any of a long list of celebrities donate $5 million to provide emergency relief and medical aid following the tragic elementary school strike in southern Iran? No, that's not true: The false claim that at least 20 sports, entertainment and political celebs made such contributions began spreading in Facebook posts hours after the…

Does a viral image accurately depict damage to a U.S. installation in Bahrain after a drone or other strike? No, that's not true: Though there were news reports of several strikes in the area, the viral before/after image contains several inconsistencies. The image showing damage to a white dome and other buildings appears to show several extra structures that were…

Did Waffle House announce plans to put floating restaurants on lakes across the southeastern United States to serve boaters, anglers, and waterfront homes? No, that's not true: A Waffle House official told Lead Stories there were no such plans. An image of a floating Waffle House in the middle of a lake, surrounded by boats, was generated by an artificial…

Did Bruce Springsteen, Jason Kelce, and Snoop Dogg, along with other entertainment and sports celebrities, call Trump adviser Stephen Miller a "Nazi" and "the Goebbels of the cabinet"? No, that's not true: The claim that a celebrity "called Trump's homeland security official Stephen Miller a 'Nazi'" is made about at least 20 celebrities but the quote actually came just from…

Does an authentic picture show a plane on fire, a purported retaliation following the Feb. 22, 2026 killing of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader in Tapalpa, Jalisco, Mexico? No, that's not true: An AI-generated content detector concluded that it was 93.2% certain the image was created by an artificial intelligence tool. At the time this was published, authorities in…

Does an image show Attorney General Pam Bondi at age 14 with President Donald Trump at a Jeffrey Epstein party? No, that's not true: An AI-generated content detector concluded that it was 99.9% certain to have been made by an artificial intelligence tool. Lead Stories found obvious signs that it was a deepfake image in 2023 when we fact checked…

Did police arrest Annie Guthrie and seize her vehicle after finding something "deeply disturbing" in the investigation of her mother Nancy Guthrie's disappearance? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, there was no evidence that Annie Guthrie was in police custody. This false claim about NBC Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie's sister was created by a Vietnam-based spam…

Is a viral image showing Bad Bunny burning a flag while preparing for the Super Bowl halftime show real? No, that's not true: The image, featuring the singer wearing a white, blue and pink striped dress and lighting an American flag on fire using a lighter, first appeared on a Facebook account that says it publishes satire. It also contained…

Is a photo that shows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer smiling and dining with Jeffrey Epstein legitimate? No, that's not true: The image was created by an artificial intelligence tool, according to several AI-generated content detectors. Google's Gemini detected a SynthID watermark embedded in the image indicating that all or part of it was created or edited with Google AI.…

Did a viral video of a crying French school teacher hit and teased by fighting students show a real-life scene from a French classroom? No, that's not true: The clip showed typical inconsistencies found in generative AI videos. The name of the account that initially posted the video contained "IA", a French equivalent of "AI". The claim appeared in a…