Does a photo show an Iranian missile with "In memory of the victims of Epstein Island" written on it? No, that's not true: An online AI image detection tool found that the image shows signs of digital manipulation, with portions edited or generated using Google AI. A "clean" version of the image without any writing on it also dates back…
Does a video show U.S. troops captured in Iran? No, that's not true: An online AI video detection tool found that the clips of the U.S. soldiers are fake but are intermixed with a real clip of President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The parts of the video with the troops contain a SynthID watermark indicating it was created…
Does a video show an American oil tanker struck by Iran and burning in the Strait of Hormuz? No, that's not true: The video shows the aftermath of a collision between two oil tankers, neither owned by the United States, in the Gulf of Oman, east of the strait. The video is from the summer of 2025, predating the Middle…
Did U.S. President Donald Trump publicly offer his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to join U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran to "finish off this Khamenei Jr."? No, that's not true: The screenshot of such a post that circulated on social media was digitally manufactured. Trump's account on Truth Social did not show the entry in question, and there was no credible…
Was Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir killed in an Iranian missile strike, despite Israeli media reports that say he died in a "car crash"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that Ben-Gvir died in either an Iranian missile strike or a traffic accident. The politician was involved in a wreck in April 2024 but was only "slightly…
Do pictures shared on social media show 173 American Delta Force soldiers captured in Iran after a failed U.S. air operation in Tehran? No, that's not true: One image, purportedly showing soldiers parachuting near helicopters, was rated 100% likely to be AI-generated. A second image, purportedly showing captured soldiers marching with their hands behind their backs, bears a visible Google…
Does a viral clip show the house fire that killed Iddo Netanyahu, brother of the Israeli prime minister? No, that's not true: That footage was uploaded online weeks before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. The clip reviewed in this fact check was recorded in New Jersey, not anywhere in the Middle East. As of publication,…
Did President Donald Trump post, "Mojtaba Khamenei are you ready to meet your father?" No, that's not true: The fake post did not come from the president's official Truth Social account. While Trump has called Mojtaba Khamenei -- Iran's new supreme leader and the son of the late longtime leader Ali Khamenei -- a "lightweight" and "unacceptable," he has not…
Did an Army prankster insert a photo of Jeffrey Epstein captioned "WHY WE FIGHT" into a "Manual for Warfighters" published by Pete Hegseth? No, that's not true: That story came from a satirical account on X that posts comedy content. There were no news reports about any such prank involving 100,000 printed copies for "soldiers training to invade Iran". The…
Did a video supposedly showing Iranians pumping air into an inflatable building to trick Americans into wasting ammunition originate from a serious news source? No, that's not true: The video, which had several glitches typical of AI-generated content, was published by an account that labels itself parody. In the first few frames the building appears to be deflating instead of…
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