Do these instructions explaining how to block "community standards" give a Facebook user free rein to violate the platform's community standards without being penalized or going to "Facebook Jail"? No, that's not true: These instructions are a sarcastic joke, a nod to a popular long-running false instructional post that tells people how they can block fact-checkers and never be fact-checked…
Is there really a "Cannibal Club" restaurant in Los Angeles and can you read all about it on their website? No, that's not true: the site was created as part of a web design class and uses stock photos and fake names for its staff. Peddlers of conspiracy theories that have latched on to the site and claim it is…
Did Facebook add a new feature that has allowed the platform to monitor and track a user's activity -- including online banking -- and read their email even when they are off Facebook, and has this been going on for the last two months? No, Facebook does not snoop in a user's banking transactions or read emails they send, but…
Is "Big Tech" letting child porn distributors freely operate while restricting people who post content that companies like Amazon and Facebook consider to be dangerous falsehoods? No, that's not how it works: No one owns the internet, which is a network of connected computers on which the World Wide Web operates via a common programming code that allows users to…
Is this Joel Osteen's house? No, that's not true: The sprawling mansion, shown in a Facebook post, is not Joel and Victoria Osteen's River Oaks, Texas, home. It is the Hidden Hills, California, home of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, according to published reports. The related claims about Osteen's taxes and federal aid are made vaguely and without evidence and…
Did Instagram institute a new set of policies on December 20, 2020, that remarkably changed the way the platform operates and that opens users up to a type of surveillance never seen before? No, that's not true: Instagram's new terms of service that went into effect on December 20, 2020, represent a clarification, but not a big change in the…
Is fact-checking on Facebook done by the Australian data company Appen? No, that's not true: Fact-checking on Facebook is done in the U.S. by 10 members of the independent International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a worldwide forum whose members are certified to adhere to a Code of Principles, one of whose tenets is non-partisanship. Appen, which has a contract with Facebook…
Does posting a legal notice to Instagram regarding permissions you grant the platform change the terms of service a social media user agreed to when they signed up for an account? No, that's not true: This notice is a made up argument with no legal value. It is an evolution of a long running copy/paste privacy hoax that has been…
Did Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook declare that Richard Jewell was a "mass murderer" and were efforts to raise money for Jewell's defense and family banned from social media? No, that's not true: The claim was oddly made by the lawyer who helped Jewell sue news organizations that published false accusations that the security guard was suspected of planting the backpack…
Does a "leaked" Jeffrey Esptein flight log show a list of celebrities, including Beyonce, Chrissy Teigen and Barack Obama, having flown on his plane nicknamed "Lolita Express?" No, that's not true. A list of 125 people circulating on social media claims A-list celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Sheen, Steven Spielberg, Madonna and politicians were on Epstein's flight logs and went…
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