Technology

Did a patent for "Human-Robots" come out in late 2019 at the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic -- proving existence of a plan to replace humans with robots, rendering human military and police forces obsolete? No, that's not true: There is a real patent application with the U.S. patent office for "Human-Robots: The New Specie", but it was first…

Did a study by the University of Seattle and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center discover that women harvest and store in their brain DNA from every man they've ever made love with? No, that's not true: The headline on an article grossly misrepresents the findings from a study that did find male DNA (a phenomenon called microchimerism) in 63…

Will FEMA's October 4, 2023, wireless emergency alert test cause a 30-minute sound on all phones, computers, televisions and radios in the United States? No, that's not true: The test of the emergency alert system will run within a 30-minute window and will be a brief sound. This is clearly stated in the article that is linked to in the…

Did Yale scientists say that a new form of "airborne mRNA" is being developed specifically for non-consensual mass vaccination? No, that's not true: The study conducted on rodents did not discuss that. The fact that an experiment appears to have worked when tested on mice never automatically translates into expedited application on people "without their knowledge," an NYU professor of…

Is it true that there will be no way to opt out of the FEMA and FCC Nationwide Emergency Alert Test on October 4, 2023? No, that's not true: If a person does not want to receive the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) portion of the test, they need only to turn their phone off at approximately 10:20 a.m. Alaska Time…

Did a billboard go up on New York's Fifth Avenue during the summer of 2023, reading "No Zelensky No War"? No, that's not true: This video is fake and has been digitally edited. The original video posted on YouTube in 2021 shows the corner of 57th St. and 5th Ave, in New York, at the Tiffany & Co. jewelry store.…

Did a homophobic man from Florida shoot his male doctor twice in the chest because he had an orgasm during a prostate exam? No, that's not true: This 'Florida man' article is fictional and was published by the now-defunct fake news and satire website Bok Daily on September 7, 2020. The images of the two men included in the original…

Did Senator Rand Paul show up to work at the U.S. Capitol barefoot wearing a red bathrobe as an apparent comment on a change to the Senate's dress code? No, that's not true: This is an AI-generated image. The poster of this on X admitted that this is a picture made by artificial intelligence. The X user who originally made…

Does a photo of barrels inside the fuselage of a plane show anything strange or is it legitimately unclear what they are for? Nope, these are just water ballast tanks that allow a test plane to be loaded with weight which can be distributed in specific areas. The photo seen on social media is actually a screengrab from a video…

Did China pass a law formally prohibiting the use of "all iPhones" in the country? No, that's not true: No credible sources reported about the purported piece of legislation; China's officials denied the existence of such a law, and then, as a new iPhone model became available in mid-September 2023, people in China still could order these Apple devices. The…

Did the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) report that Poles have started to rename their Wi-Fi networks to insult Ukrainian refugees in Poland? No, that's not true: Both DW and the Ukrainian government refuted the claim. A Lead Stories analysis indicates that the claim's list of supposed Wi-Fi networks may predate Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine that displaced…

Does a video on TikTok capture the moment of the F-35B crash in South Carolina on September 17, 2023? No, that's not true: the clip does not accurately portray the location. It was originally published by an account specializing in sharing "realistic" fragments from flight simulator video games. Its author confirmed to Lead Stories that the video was artificially generated.…

Does an image called "Mexico did it," referring to a supposed COVID-19 cure in Mexico, actually spread a virus within five seconds when opened on a phone and did CNN and the BBC report about this? No, that's not true: Lead Stories could find no online evidence that an image file that causes a virus on a cellphone even exists…

Did Facebook or its parent company Meta announce a plan to charge all of the platform's users $4.99 a month for access? Will copying and pasting a post about the change allow people to "opt out" or "bypass the system"? No, none of that is true: Neither Facebook nor Meta made such an announcement as of this writing. Different variations…

Did a large lightning bolt and strange lights appear in this video right before the earthquake struck Morocco on September 8, 2023? No, that's not true: The video, originally posted on TikTok (archived here) on May 1, 2020, was removed from its original context and a false caption added by someone else. It does not show the moments before the…

Do an unburned blue car and beach umbrella seen in a social-media video about the August 2023 wildfire that ravaged the town of Lahaina on Hawaii's island of Maui prove that lasers caused the blaze since the color blue can resist lasers? No, that's not true: The video that touted this widespread claim was marked "For entertainment only." Two additional…

Does this video show a real asteroid crashing into the moon, prompting an explosion following the collision? No, that's not true: Lead Stories determined through a reverse image search that the footage in question was first posted by a YouTube creator in February 2023 and was later shared by an account on Instagram that confirmed the clip was created using…

Did a "lead developer at Google Earth" say he believes the Earth is flat? No, that's not true: This claim originated from a 2017 article that Lead Stories was unable to verify as being authentic. We could not find any evidence that a lead developer at Google ever publicly said this or that a lead developer was ever suspended from…

Did Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pass the "Digital Existence Act" in response to the spread of a new COVID variant, helping Canada to transition to Digital ID, Central Bank Digital Currency and a Social Credit system? No, that's not true: This post originated from a parody account. The format of the screenshot partially obscures the parody account name, making…

Did India fake the landing of the Chandrayaan-3 lander module on the surface of the moon, and attempt to fool the world with an animation? No, that's not true: This image does show a simulation, but it was not presented in an effort to deceive the public. The Chandrayaan-3 lander module, named Vikram, did achieve a soft landing near the…