Deepfakes

Does a video show real footage of a U.K. member of Parliament asking why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been captured the same way the United States captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela? No, that's not true: The clip was generated using artificial intelligence. Early versions of the video included a watermark indicating a specific generative AI tool. There…

Does Sweet Angel Child Care's phone number dial directly to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's office? No, that's not true: The child care center's phone number as listed on the state licensing website and several other online directories does not connect to the governor's office. The number dialed in an online video making the claim was on a Google map listing,…

Is an archived page of a Melania Trump profile on "A Foreign Affair" mail-order bride website from 1996 real? No, that's not true: The purported page was never archived on the Wayback Machine servers, Internet Archive director Mark Graham told Lead Stories. "What you see is a doctored image," he said. An analysis done with help from the Wayback Machine's…

Were Novak Djokovic, Barbra Streisand, Cher, Dolly Parton and dozens of other celebrities each honored with a full-body bronze statue on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? No, that's not true: The exact same story, usually just altered by changing the name of the celebrity, appeared on dozens of sites and Facebook pages run from Vietnam. There were no real news…

Does a viral clip document a real bridge collapse in Norway? No, that's not true: No such event, which would have attracted media attention worldwide, was covered by legitimate news organizations. Multiple visual artifacts show it's an AI creation, including unrealistic movements by the bridge and abnormally behaving trucks. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X…

Are images showing Tupac Shakur in a hospital room in the last days of his life real? No, that's not true: Shakur's lawyer, who was present at the Las Vegas hospital where the hip-hop icon was treated for fatal gunshot wounds, examined the four images and concluded "these are not real." Attorney David Kenner noted that Shakur was always on…

Is a photo showing Melania Trump kissing Jeffrey Epstein on the lips real? No, that's not true: The Hive Moderation AI detection tool was conclusive that the image was created by an artificial intelligence tool, rating it at 98.8 percent certainty. Online searches found no examples of the image earlier than one shared in an X post on December 17,…

Does Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in music for 2025 include Tom Jones, Jelly Roll, Willie Nelson, Pink, Jimmy Page, Johnny Mathis, Mick Jagger, or anyone? No, that's not true: There is no such TIME Magazine list. While musicians are sometimes included in the publication's annual list of most influential people, there is no specific list of 100 musicians.…

Does a viral image really show the "leaked Facebook profile" of the "Bondi Beach shooter" and does it reveal he is an Israeli named "David Cohen"? No, that's not true: The image circulating on social media shows several signs of digital tampering and possible use of AI. Authorities have named "Naveed Akram" and "Sajid Akram" as the shooters in the…

Did Rachel Maddow, tennis champion Coco Gauff and former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, plus dozens of other prominent Americans, post identical brave notes from a hospital bed, saying "I still have a long road ahead. But I believe in recovery -- through love, through support, and through everyone's thoughts and prayers."? No, that's not true: The stories, with identical…

Was a special Academy Award given to an entertainer or celebrity "for the extraordinary impact of her compassion and sustained service to American communities"? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories claim that Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Coco Gauff, Danica Patrick and more than a dozen other celebrities were awarded the unusual Oscar. The stories were published by a network…

Does actual drone footage show a giant "eclipse Octopus" in the Gulf of America (sometimes also called the Gulf of Mexico)? No, that's not true: The video originated on a TikTok channel with a disclaimer that says it publishes videos made with artificial intelligence tools and which posted many other faked animal videos. The "octopus" in the video also had…

Does a video titled "Operation Metro Freeze" show real footage of a deportation flight in Minnesota? No, that's not true: AI made that clip. Early versions of it showed a watermark pointing to a specific generative AI tool and it's unlikely a military transport plane would have a tail number like the one in the video. The claim appeared in…

Was the "Obama Fraud Vault" showing $4.5 billion stolen from Obama's foundation released on Fox News live in December 2025? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories claiming that Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Jeanine Pirro, Greg Gutfeld, Sen. John Kennedy, and other conservative figures "just unleashed the Obama Fraud Vault on FOX live" were published by a network of websites…

Did Zohran Mamdani, Melania Trump, Sen. John Kennedy or other prominent Americans go live with a 3 a.m. emergency monologue claiming they were under threat for secrets they were about to expose about President Donald Trump or former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by a…

Did a "Josephine Boudreaux, the Black Widow of Louisiana", seduce and kill 11 Klan members in 1872? No, that's not true: This story is made up and only recently surfaced on social media. There is no historical record of this woman, and the story lacks verifying details such as names and places. There are many images purporting to show Boudreaux,…

Do these viral videos show real footage from flooded tents in Gaza? No, that's not true: While there were credible reports about December 2025 flooding in that region, some of the Gaza flood clips shared on social media were not real. The signs pointing to AI included strangely shaped hands, distorted faces and scene elements inconsistent with real natural disaster…

Did Barron and Melania Trump, Prince Harry Mountbatten-Windsor, Eminem and Vince Gill each "quietly spend $10 million" to build churches without seeking publicity? No, that's not true: The fake images and nearly-verbatim fake stories appear on Facebook pages that send users to made-for-advertising sites. The church-building stories, featuring more than a dozen different celebrities, are the Christmas 2025 entrant in…

Is a "shocking" video of Charlie Kirk murder defendant Tyler Robinson and his lawyer talking in court before a hearing in the case real? No, that's not true: The news media feed from the same moment and the same camera captured an inaudible whispered conversation. The video is a satirical attack on podcaster Candace Owens and the theories about the…

Is a photo showing President Donald Trump using a walker to assist him real? No, that's not true: The image has the SynthID watermark that indicates it was created by Google's AI tool, according to an analysis by Google's Gemini chatbot. The image may have been created for satirical reasons since it was posted soon after President Trump signed an…