South Africa

Did Assistant to the Secretary of Defense John Kirby say that the "true number of civilians deaths in Gaza is zero"? No, that's not true: That is a misquote that drastically changes the meaning of what Kirby said. No such quote is found in the transcript of the briefing shown in the Tweet that makes the claim. What Kirby did…

Did the Rothschild family buy or do they own Rothschild Island in Antarctica? No, that's not true: The island, which is part of Antarctica and not owned by anyone, was sighted from a distance by the French Antarctic Expedition between 1908 and 1910. The expedition leader, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, named it after Baron Edouard de Rothschild, the then-head of the French…

Did the Australian TV network 9News report that the Australian Securities Exchange and Reserve Bank of Australia had announced a new financial platform that could enable investors to earn 30,000 Australian dollars each month? No, that's not true: A video on Facebook that made this claim did not include a genuine 9News newscast, nor is there any record that the…

Did Elon Musk promote an investing platform on SABC News South Africa? No, that's not true: This video post uses inauthentic audio dubbed over an authentic video of Musk speaking during a Fox News interview in April 2023. No such report on the South African Broadcasting Corporation website was found. This resembles multiple prior posts making false claims that Musk…

Does a video on social media prove that the United Nations "is setting up shop" in the United States in 2023 to plot for a "take over" scheduled to take place "when WW3 is declared"? No, that's not true: This years-old claim was refuted by a U.S. State Department representative in 2016. He said that the U.N. vehicles seen in…

Did Dr. Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist who has repeatedly made anti-COVID-19 vaccine statements, successfully discredit the World Health Organization (WHO) and the global health community's approach to COVID-19 treatment during a speech in Strasbourg, France, on September 13, 2023? No, that's not true: McCullough bases his claims on rejected scientific papers with methodological flaws and long-debunked assertions. The physician…

Was a state of emergency declared due to an Ebola outbreak at Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada? No, that's not true: There were no reports of known or suspected Ebola cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency confirmed to Lead Stories on September 5, 2023. Burning Man representatives confirmed to Lead Stories that…

Did India fake the landing of the Chandrayaan-3 lander module on the surface of the moon, and attempt to fool the world with an animation? No, that's not true: This image does show a simulation, but it was not presented in an effort to deceive the public. The Chandrayaan-3 lander module, named Vikram, did achieve a soft landing near the…

Are 78,000 people "under the water" right now in Great Britain? No, that's not true: This video is a compilation of flood and storm video clips from years past, and in some cases from other places such as Canada and South Africa. These are not scenes of a flood happening in Great Britain on August 26, 2023, when the clam…

Did a viral video capture two Russian Tu-160 military jets arriving in South Africa in 2023? No, that's not true: The footage, initially aired by the Russian state-sponsored TV network RT, showed a 2019 event. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on July 26, 2023. Its caption was: What is this? The video contained what appeared…