Iran

Did former President Jimmy Carter die on July 23, 2024? No, that's not true: The owner of the account that posted a fake letter about Carter passing away told Lead Stories he carried out the hoax to show how sensationalist news spreads. The Carter Center, a human rights organization founded by the 39th president, also denied that Carter had died,…

Did authentic social media posts offer genuine concern over a missing teen named Kaniesa Perez? No, that's not true: The posts exploit a real missing teen story and falsely say that Kaniesa Perez went missing on the same day from Dover, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, among other locations more than a thousand miles apart. In reality, the teen went…

Did protesters hang a "giant banner" at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City in June 2024 of Iran's leader "thanking" Americans for pro-Palestinian rallies, as footage on social media appears to show? No, that's not true: The banner appears to have been added through generative AI, as initial video recordings of a protest at the museum on May 31,…

Does a video show Muhammad Moin Al-Din, an 86-year-old man, caught in the act of sexually assaulting a 7-year-old girl in the tall grass of an agricultural field as a viral tweet claimed? No, that's not true: This false narrative has been attached to a short clip from a controversial 2004 Iranian TV series. The original series had a strong…

Does a video on social media show the U.S. Navy deploying from Miami in response to "Russian warships" on June 12, 2024? No, that's not true: The scene was from an annual aerial show held at Miami Beach. Additionally, the sunny, clear sky in the video does not match the stormy weather that the area actually experienced on June 12,…

Did the Albanian prime minister describe the "three major devils in the world" as being the U.S., the Soviet Union and Israel while speaking in front of the U.S. secretary of state Anthony Blinken? No, that's not true: A video clip used in a social media post is missing context. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was explaining the history of…

Did former Mossad director Efraim Halevy say in 2024 that Israel armed Al Qaeda? No, that's not true: A viral video did not contain the words described in social media posts. The footage was 8 years old when it resurfaced on social media in 2024. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, by…

Does a video show the aftermath of a Houthi missile strike on the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier in June 2024? No, that's not true: The video is from 2020 and shows a smoking fire on the naval vessel USS Bonhomme Richard at the Navy's base in San Diego. The incident was widely reported at the time by major news outlets.…

Was former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who responded to the January 6, 2021, insurrection, a young Iranian hired during the Clinton era? No, that's not true: Fanone is not an Iranian national, He was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Alexandria, Virginia. He graduated from Ballou High School in Washington. Fanone initially began working for the U.S. Capitol…

Did someone remove the satellite weather data from May 19, 2024, in the region of Jolfa, Iran, where a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi crashed in foggy conditions in the mountains? No, that's not true: As of May 21, 2024, the satellite product from the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere has the archived weather data for that…