Mark Zuckerberg

On November 10, 2021, Lead Stories published a fact check about an article published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on November 2, 2021. In response, the BMJ published an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg on December 17, 2021, calling our fact check "inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible." We addressed their concerns in a December 18, 2021, article, going over their…

Did Dr. Anthony Fauci admit that COVID-19 vaccines may make people worse? No, that's not true: His comments were taken out of context. He spoke in March 2020, when the vaccines were still in development. The nation's top infectious disease expert was talking about a concern that some scientists had at that time: the theoretical possibility, with any vaccine candidates,…

Was a video game named "Omikron: The Nomad Soul" created by Bill Gates, and does it have any ties to the emergence of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus? No, that's not true: Although the game was originally made to be used with a Microsoft Windows operating system, it was not created by Gates. Other claims about the…

Update: In response to this fact check the BMJ published an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg. Our response is here, we stand by our reporting. We also published an article titled "Context Matters: Why Lead Stories Fact Checked The BMJ" to further clarify the reasons for the fact check after the BMJ published another article claiming this was an case…

Is a meme correct in implying vaccination ("the shot") is not working to prevent COVID-19? No, that's not true: Since it uses an image of a comedian's fictional rapper character, "Ali G," it may be satire. But the apparent reference to vaccinated people still getting sick ignores the fact that the point of vaccination campaigns is to sharply limit the…

Does this meme accurately represent the relationships of several CEOs to the products of their respective companies? This tweet from 2019 contains a mixture of true, false, unverified and misleading statements. This screenshot meme originated with a tweet posted on November 22, 2019. It resurfaced in a post on Facebook on June 27, 2021, captioned only, "Question everything." The text…

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…