Usher

Is the U.S. government planning to force Americans to take vaccinations during the coronavirus pandemic with the help of Bill Gates? No, there is no proof for that: A video from InfoWars has gone viral, asking if viewers were going to "allow your government to impose forced vaccinations?" The video tapped into history to suggest the government's response to COVID-19…

Did Fox News win a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting during the coronavirus crisis? Not, that's not true: The claim was made in a post on a site clearly labeled as satire and part of a well-known network of satirical websites that trolls conservatives with fiction to rile up their base. The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published…

Was Duck Dynasty star Si Robertson found dead? No, that's not true: Uncle Silas Robertson is not dead but was the target of a well-known hoax website. A story went viral claiming that the A&E Television star had died - but the truth is he is still "alive and kickin y'all!" The website that posted the story is part of…

Did Donald Trump tweet in 2015 that if the "Dow Joans" were to fall more than 1,000 points in a single day, the president should be shot out of a cannon? No, that's not true: The tweet-within-a-tweet was made up, and the author has admitted it was a joke. The fake tweet has been debunked previously, but it seems to…

Is U.S. Attorney General William Barr about to announce federal regulations banning Sharia Law in the United States? No, that's not true: The story was posted on a satirical site that trolls conservatives and bills itself as "satire for Islamphobes." But very often, real fake news sites copy and paste the information, positing it as true news. The story originated…

Is Ilhan Omar married to a Somali man named B'oom B'oom? No, that's not true: The man in the photo is Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, an American actor who played the role of Freddy 'Boom Boom' Washington in the popular TV series Welcome Back, Kotter from 1975- 1979. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to mislead Trump…

Did Nancy Pelosi have the Health Department shut down the Trump Plaza hotel in Manhattan? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to mislead Trump supporters and Republicans into sharing made up stories that are clearly marked as satire when you actually click them. Articles from the site are frequently copied by…

Was Nancy Pelosi involved in one of the biggest heroin busts? No, that's not true: The claim that Speaker Pelosi was involved in a massive operation to smuggle heroin into the United States from southeast Asia has no basis in fact. A published report making the claim offered no documentation and included a conspiracy theory dating back to World War…

Did the Oxford University Press issue a complete ban on using the word "pork" (or other pig related terms) to avoid offending Muslims? No, that's not true: a memo reminding authors of children's books to be culturally sensitive when writing for foreign markets was misinterpreted as a "complete ban on using the word 'pork'" in 2015 and the story has…

Do U.S. Muslims make up only one percent of the population, but they file 40% of workplace discrimination complaints? No, that's not true: Yes, Muslims are just 1% of the U.S. population, but they filed only about 1.5% of all workplace discrimination complaints during 2018, according to an analysis of statistics provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The…