Did California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticize Nick Shirley, or did Sen. John Neely Kennedy criticize Adam Schiff, saying "Lock him up for lying to Congress, abusing power, and betraying the public trust!"? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. A search of Google News…
Is there a television special called "Seeking the Truth, Finding Justice" about Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre in which celebrities -- from Pope Leo XIV to Barbra Streisand -- invested over $246,000? No, that's not true: There is no evidence of such a TV show or that anyone contributed to making it a reality. The claim is an example of so-called…
Did Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyár, who is challenging sitting Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the April 2026 election, describe U.S. President Donald Trump as "a senile grandpa" in a public speech? No, that's not true: The claim originated from a fake report that stole the logo of Euronews, a real news organization, in an apparent attempt to make the…
Does a viral video purporting to show the ruins of an Amazon data center in the Middle East document a real scene? No, that's not true: The video contained multiple signs pointing to AI, including an incorrectly spelled company's name and a person who appears headless and then grows a head in less than a second. According to Google, the…
Does a mid-twentieth-century photograph capture the consequences of a transorbital lobotomy performed on a man named "James Peterson" for being gay in 1948? No, that's not true: The image is not a photograph -- it's an image generated by the AI tool Grok, as a barely visible watermark in the bottom right corner indicated. The content of the picture contradicts…
Is this picture showing the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia on fire after a drone attack real? No, that's not true: An online detection tool rated the image 99.7% likely to be AI-generated and it contained a watermark from an AI image generator. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Defense did say there was "limited fire and minor material damage to the…
Does a video show an American soldier named Bishop in "the Gulf" crying because his shattered phone screen prevents him from seeing his daughter's face? No, that's not true: The clip is AI-generated and comes from a social media page known for posting fake videos. It contains several AI "hallucinations" and red flags typical of AI-generated content, such as distorted…
Does a video show women in Iran removing burqas and then burning pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after he died in U.S.-Israeli strikes in February 2026? No, that's not true: The clip being shared does not show people in Iran after recent strikes. It instead shows a demonstration in Paris from January 2026, when a group of activists…
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 was created and distributed by a spam factory…
Does a viral panoramic image really show Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, during the unrest that followed the killing of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera? No, that's not true: What looked like a Google Earth image was digitally modified to add fires. According to Google and two online detectors, the picture with buildings on fire was created using generative AI tools. The claim…
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.
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