Venezuela

Did a military tribunal sentence Tom Vilsack, the U.S. secretary of agriculture, to hang? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) told Lead Stories that this claim is false. A duty officer for the Pentagon told us that this story was "ridiculous" and "untrue." Real Raw News, the website that published this story, is…

Is the person in this video a 163-year-old Black man who is the oldest man in the world? No, that's not true: The man seen in this video is a 109-year-old monk from Thailand. He gained attention when his granddaughter posted video of him on her TikTok account. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on February 19,…

Did Russia send jet bombers to Venezuela during its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in 2022? No, that's not true: A CNN news report describing Russian bombers that landed in Venezuela to conduct exercises over the Caribbean was broadcast in 2018. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on February 25, 2022. The post has a TikTok that included…

Ms. Susan Wojcicki, It's been almost two years since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The world has seen time and time again how destructive disinformation and misinformation can be for social harmony, democracy, and public health; too many lives and livelihoods have been ruined, and far too many people have lost loved ones to disinformation. As an international network of fact-checking…

Did several Malaysians film a giant UFO hovering over a village? No, that's not true: The UFO featured in this video clip was the creation of filmmaker Damien White. Extensive footage of this UFO, including 3-D wireframes from the early stages of the CGI animation, were posted to White's YouTube channel in 2007. This fictional CGI short film was originally…

Does Mike Lindell's "Absolute Interference" video, his third that purports to prove 2020 election fraud, contain only proven statements? No, that's not true: It contradicts itself and recycles claims that have been debunked before, relying on discredited and anonymous guests who make unsubstantiated and disproven allegations. The video's orienting claim is that foreign and domestic actors hacked the election through…

Does the "Unmasked" video uncover the truth about the 2020 presidential election? No, it doesn't: The video remixes previously debunked claims of vote fraud and election theft. Chief among them were allegations that "vote spikes" in battleground states were suspicious, that Georgia poll workers pulled boxes of illegal ballots from under a table for counting, that foreign countries skewed the…

By Dana Ford and Alexis Tereszcuk Does Mike Lindell's "Absolute Proof" video, which promises to expose election fraud, contain only factual and proven statements about the 2020 election? No, that's not true: The nearly two-hour video recycles familiar conspiracy theories, touching on claims that have been widely and repeatedly debunked. Among the disproven allegations are that dead people voted, that…

Does Michael Flynn's interview with Alex Jones include only factual statements about the 2020 election? No, that's not true: The interview repeats disproven allegations of foreign interference, that thousands of dead people voted in Pennsylvania and that Donald Trump won up to 400 Electoral College votes. All are demonstrably false. Flynn's interview (archived here) with Jones -- a well-known conspiracy…

Did a computer analyst prove voting software used in Antrim County, Michigan was designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud? No, that's not true: The expert making the claims has not been put under oath nor cross-examined, provides no witnesses and officials say he does not have access to the data needed to make the calculations he presents. Michigan's…