Satire

Is the story of a man with "eleven properties in the metaverse" (including a "beachfront villa in Horizon Worlds") whose net worth peaked at $1.2 million real? No, that's not true: It appeared on the X account of content creator and security researcher Peter Girnus. His account features several other satirical tall tales about being a leader or executive of…

Did U.S. President Donald Trump write a post about winning "the Iran thing" in a "Bigly" way on March 19, 2026? No, that's not true: The post did not originate from Trump's account. The image of the entry, as it first appeared on social media, carried a satire label. The claim originated from a post (archived here) published on X…

Is a new Disneyland theme park valued at "$100 billion" coming to Ohio as some social media posts claim? No, that's not true: The news originated on Mouse Trap News, a satirical publication specializing in Disney-related stories. The site described the story about a new park in Cincinnati as "totally made-up" in the footer of the article. The story came…

Did British actress Adjoa Andoh accuse the "Lord of the Rings" movies of blackface over a scene where Frodo's face was covered in ash? No, that's not true: Accounts that boosted the claim on social media as real took it from a self-described satire page. No credible news organizations reported the purported controversy. The story originated from a post (archived…

Did a U.K. teacher with the name "Ze Berry" actually refuse to teach students who came to school dressed as Harry Potter and Dobby the Elf? No, that's not true: The story was initially published by a meme page. Two online detectors identified the image of "Ze Berry" as AI-generated. The story originated from a post (archived here) on Facebook…

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 Dennis Rodman fly to Tehran to negotiate peace, and did Iran agree to a meeting? No, that's not true: An online AI image detection tool rated the image as 100% likely to be AI-generated, and a separate analysis detected a SynthID watermark indicating it was created or modified by Google's AI models. The information originated on a Facebook page…

Does a viral image prove that Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite convicted of sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein, touched Melania Trump's breast while posing next to Donald Trump at a party in the early 2000s? No, that's not true: A real photo of them was digitally altered to change the position of Maxwell's hand. In the original shot, Maxwell's arm rests…

Did Kash Patel, Sen. John Kennedy, Pete Buttigieg, Vince Gill and others demand that former President Barack Obama return millions he earned through ownership related to "Obamacare"? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories that swap-in those and other names are part of an international network of websites and Facebook pages that publish fake news stories about famous people to…

Did a meme about the "National Intelligence Agency" discovering Bernie Sanders owns several companies and bank accounts in China originate from actual news reports? No, that's not true: It originated on a satirical Facebook page run by a liberal man with a long history of tricking conservatives into sharing made-up content. The meme had an explicit disclaimer from the Facebook…