Did President Joe Biden go on a transphobic rant live on national television? No, that's not true: A viral video mimicking his manner of speech had the authentic sound replaced with a made-up voice-over, probably utilizing a deep fake technology. The claim appeared in a video published on Instagram on February 5, 2023, under the title: Best Speech Ever The…
Does a video circulating on social media show American M1 Abrams tanks in Poland? No, that's not true: The clip was shot in the United States, in Kansas. While the video lacks the precise details needed to establish whether the tanks in question are indeed M1 Abrams, the claim that these tanks were delivered to Europe just a day after…
Did new graffiti negatively portraying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appear in London? No, that's not true: Based on analysis of open-source data, Lead Stories identified the location of the purported drawing as Lindt Home of Chocolate in Zurich, Switzerland. The Lindt Home of Chocolate spokesperson confirmed to Lead Stories that the posts in question showed the front of their building,…
Did a YouTube video reveal that Elon Musk bought the search engine giant Google? No, that's not true: The video has a clickbait title, offers no details of a sale and appeared on a YouTube channel that admits its videos are fictional and have no connection to Musk. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has no record that Google, a…
Was "Russia's most advanced nuclear submarine' seen floating in Hawaii on December 26, 2022? No, that's not true: A social media post making the claim uses footage from a fictional TV show. The story appeared in a post published on Facebook on December 26, 2022. It contained a video of what appeared to show a beach crowd surprisingly observing an…
Is there a "huge army of 2500000 Chechens preparing the end of Russia" or helping "get Putin out of the bottleneck" in Ukraine? No, that's not true: The self-contradictory claim that fails to mention a source cites an unrealistic number exceeding the entire population of the Chechen republic. The claim appeared in a post published on Facebook on December 24,…
Have 80,000 Ukrainian troops totally blockaded Russian invasion forces fighting in Ukraine's semi-occupied eastern Donetsk region? No, that's not true: The post making the claim in its caption does not mention a blockade in an accompanying video. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Donetsk on December 20, 2022, and did not say his forces had surrounded the Russian invaders. Keyword searches…
Did 80,000 Polish troops besiege Kaliningrad, Russia? No, that's not true: The video making this claim in its headline does not mention 80,000 Polish troops besieging Kaliningrad, Russia, in its recorded content. There have also been no news reports of this purported event. The claim appeared on Facebook on December 17, 2022. The caption read: Red Alert in Kremlin- 80,000…
The year is almost over, so it is good to look back. First, the numbers, as of December 15, 2022. This year we have published 1,555 fact checks in English (so far ...) 283 fact checks about COVID misinformation; 244 debunks of Russian propaganda and false claims about the invasion of Ukraine; 140 debunks of false claims about election fraud,…
Does a video show the Russian government evacuating 800,000 people from the "island" of Crimea? No, that's not true: Russian officials said in media reports and on social media sites that no evacuations have occurred in Crimea. Also, Crimea is a peninsula, not an island. The claim appeared on Facebook on November 7, 2022, under the title "It's all over-…
Lead Stories is a U.S. based 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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