Clickbait Network

Did Pauley Perrette, the actor who formerly starred in the television series "NCIS," die on December 11, 2022? No, that's not true: Perrette is, at the time of writing, active on social media and in recent weeks shifted her posting from Twitter to Instagram. She has posted twice on Instagram since clickbait videos announced her death on YouTube and Instagram…

The celebrity death hoax has long been a clickbait staple, but recently one network has taken it to extremes, using scores of websites to host its content and an automated army of bots to push the links into Facebook groups. Many Facebook users and group administrators have noticed a sharp increase in spam postings of false death hoaxes. Examples of…

Does the movie "Died Suddenly" demonstrate that COVID-19 vaccinations cause widespread sudden death or severe medical outcomes? No, that's not true: The film recycles previously debunked claims that the vaccine is lethal or dangerous for the average person receiving it. More than 5.45 billion people have been vaccinated worldwide and public health experts recommend immunization against the virus, saying it…

Did U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon lose her license for being corrupt, as the title of a video claims? No, that's not true: The content of the video doesn't support the title, and no articles in major news publications reported on this. The claim appeared in a Facebook post on September 30, 2022, with the title "Trump's Corrupt Judge loses…

Does a video show Sen. Ted Cruz telling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi she is guilty? No, that's not true: The video shows a clip of Cruz speaking about various political topics but not about Pelosi. The video's headline does not match the footage. It appears to be clickbait to draw attention to a Facebook page. The claim appeared in a…

Does a video show Sen. Ted Cruz revealing documents that expose House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden? No, that's not true: The video just shows clips of Cruz speaking about unrelated matters during two separate legislative meetings and appears to be clickbait to draw attention to a Facebook page. The claim appeared in a…

Did the U.S. military arrest members of Congress at the White House? No, that's not true: This did not happen, and the video making the claim seemingly used the title for clickbait. The claim appeared in a video posted to Facebook published on June 9, 2022. The title of the video is: 𝐔𝐒𝐀 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒…

Did a retired nurse in hospice care just reveal that she had swapped 5,000 babies over over the course of her 44-year career working at many hospitals in the St. Louis, Missouri, area? No, that's not true: There is no evidence supporting this claim. There is however, a very similar story that circulated in 2019 regarding the purported "confession" from…

Did Melania Trump "break up" with Donald Trump, or dump him, as announced in the title of a video? No, that clickbait headline is not supported by the news story it was based on. In the video the narrator, Christo Aivalis, discusses his take on a recently announced arrangement between Melania Trump and the social media platform Parler. He says…

Has the "Emergency Broadcast System" been activated? No, that's not true: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) confirmed to Lead Stories that the Emergency Alert System (EAS) has not been activated. If it had been, the protocol would be that the president of the United States would address the nation within 10 minutes of a national emergency. This has not…