Election Disinformation

Did The Department Of Homeland Security craft an election fraud sting by printing watermarked ballots? No, that's not true: The design, printing and auditing of ballots are processes managed by state and local election officials. One of many versions of this rumor appeared when it was uploaded to Facebook in a post (archived here) published on November 5, 2020, with…

Did the Department of Homeland Security issue a private "press release" through "AP OneWire" that was then leaked through the website treeofliberty.me? No, that's not true: The AP (Associated Press worldwide news organization) does not have a product called OneWire. The DHS could not have issued a press release through an Associated Press service that does not exist. The claim…

Are the Sunrise Movement, Black Lives Matter, other left-leaning organizations and the Democratic Party caught on tape coordinating a coup if President Trump wins re-election, including the takeover of government buildings like the White House along with transportation hubs and key U.S. cities? No, this is not true. Sunrise, an anti-Trump climate-change movement, told Lead Stories its Zoom meetings were…

Did Facebook ban this "President Trump campaign ad"? No, that's not true. It goes without saying that videos playing on a platform proclaiming they are banned by that platform have not been banned. Those behind such posts use them as a way to profit from online traffic. This example is not A Trump 2020 campaign ad. It does not carry…

Abbie Richards, a climate science student in the Netherlands, was looking with bewilderment at the state of her home country of the United States. So many conspiracy theories echoing, particularly ahead of the election. Struggling to wrangle all of them for a paper, she made a chart naming some 100 conspiracies dominating the social media world to, she hoped, make…

Was a "new" photograph of Malia Obama's credit card with a white powdery substance in lines found on Hunter Biden's laptop? No, that's not true. A picture circulating showing a "Malia Obama" Visa card near lines of white powder has been on the internet since at least 2019. There is no proof that it was found on a laptop allegedly…

Did Breitbart News report that the daughter of Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coons and seven other underaged girls were "featured" on Hunter Biden's laptop? No, that's not true: The claim cannot be found anywhere on Breitbart.com and a representative of the conservative publisher confirmed to Lead Stories that the website never published such a report. Also, there is no indication…

Did ABC, CBS and NBC ignore New York Post stories that Democrat Joe Biden helped his son get rich from a Ukrainian company, with "proof" on a laptop the younger Biden abandoned at a repair shop? No, this is not true. All three networks have covered the story -- allegations that surfaced first in the conservative tabloid on October 14,…

Does a letter from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe support the claim that Hillary Clinton planned "the Russia hoax" against Donald Trump in July 2016? No, that's not true: Director Ratcliffe wrote in a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham dated September 29, 2020, that the information was "Russian intelligence analysis" and the U.S. intelligence community "does not know the…

The project, FactChat, will lead to the creation of a WhatsApp chatbot and two Spanish-language fact-checking units. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Sept. 18, 2020) -- Led by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute, FactChat is the first collaborative project to unite 10 U.S. fact-checking organizations with two major Spanish-language news broadcasters to fight mis/disinformation during a presidential campaign.…