Is InfoWars providing evidence-based information when it reports a doctor's claim that COVID-19 vaccines likely cause permanent heart damage in most patients that may kill some within three years? No, that's not true: The report is based on a Lytton, British Columbia family practitioner's video that provides no reviewable data about his patients' other medical conditions, data on parallel examination…

Was Nickelodeon named after Nicholas Elodeon, the creator of the kids TV channel? No, that's not true: What eventually became Nickelodeon began as Pinwheel, an experimental kids show produced by a cable company in Columbus, Ohio, in the late 1970s. It was later renamed Nickelodeon, a reference to the earliest movie exhibition theaters. The claim appeared in a tweet posted…

Did the CDC report that deaths related to COVID-19 vaccines had skyrocketed and that more people were dying of the vaccine than the disease? No, that's not true: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not make any such announcement that vaccine-related deaths had shot up in the past week. Foreign reports were temporarily added into the VAERS (Vaccine…

Does an old photo show a young Nancy Pelosi walking with her dad, who appears to be Adolph Hilter? No, that's not true: The black-and-white image shows Helga Goebbels, the daughter of the chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, walking with the German dictator in 1936. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on July 24, 2021.…

Was German former Formula One race car driver Michael Schumacher in a coma for six years after a skiing accident? And did his wife Corinna go into bankruptcy to fund her husband's medical treatment? No, that's not true: Michael Schumacher suffered traumatic brain injury when he fell and hit his head on a rock while skiing in Meribel in the…

Does Facebook take down posts that include the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag? No, that's not true: A Facebook spokesperson said there was no truth to this. And posts with the Pledge of Allegiance are on Facebook at the time of this writing. The claim appeared in a July 4, 2020, Facebook post. It opens: FB took it down!!!!!!!…

Does this video compilation show amazing superhuman feats of punching speed? No, that's not true: These creative videos show a variety of post-production effects that can be achieved with digital tools, notably masking, using a video editing program. This collection of short videos was posted on Facebook by LADbible on May 7, 2021. The video was captioned: Lads Have Ridiculously…

Is it valid to compare the odds of a shark attack to the odds of contracting the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus? No, that's not true: One noted shark expert says a person is 300,000 times more likely to get COVID via the delta variant than to be attacked by a shark. The comparison claim appeared in a July…

Is a vaccinated person wrong to believe an unvaccinated person is a threat to their health? No, that's not true: No vaccine is 100% effective, so the vaccinated person is still at risk of infection and, at the time the post appeared, unvaccinated people were most likely to carry the infection. During a pandemic, with airborne viruses circulating from person…

Is there evidence that posters advertising jobs for teenagers are actually sex trafficking schemes? No, that's not true: According to representatives for anti-sex trafficking organizations, such posters are not known to be tied to sex trafficking, although they have been linked to labor schemes. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on January 28, 2020. It features a…

Did a report recently reveal that COVID-19 killed pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein? No, that's not true: Jeffrey Epstein, who was being held on federal sex trafficking charges, was found unresponsive in a New York City jail cell on August 10, 2019, and soon after pronounced dead, about four months before the COVID-19 virus was found in the U.S. His death…

Did pop singer-songwriter Billie Eilish say that she wanted to be poor so she could be more relatable to her fans? No, that's not true: Eilish's publicist called the screenshot "fake press clips." The story originated from @BilliesUpdatess, a Twitter account that has now been suspended. When the fake story was published is not clear. The false story gained a…

Did the Henry County, Virginia, Sheriff's Office confirm images of a bigfoot? No, that's not true: Capt. Scott Barker with the sheriff's office confirmed to Lead Stories on the phone that their department has not seen or validated any images of the mythical creature, nor have they seen the creature in their county. The claim appeared in a post (archived…

Are the tweets replicating a Florida emergency room doctor's lament over rising Delta variant cases all part of a pro-vaccine propaganda campaign? No, that's not true: Several replicas appear to be part of a gaslighting ploy by anti-vaccine activists seeking to discredit news of rising hospital loads. Dr. Sam Ghali's tweet was turned into a meme that anti-vaccine and COVID-minimizing…

Did a woman frighten her husband and cause him to have a heart attack by making a likeness of his girlfriend's head and leaving it in their refrigerator? No, that's not true: This unnerving refrigerator photo of an item wrapped with paper printed with a life-size image of a woman's face went viral in early April 2019 without the accompanying…

Did a team of all-Black, all-female chess champions get snubbed by mainstream media? No, that's not true: the middle-school-aged team, which competed in 2016, was recognized by both local and national media outlets. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on July 14, 2021. It featured an image of the all-female University Prep Science & Math team…

Is a letter rejecting AARP membership and criticizing President Joe Biden's "Socialist politics" from 2021? No, that's not true: The letter was written in 2009 during the administration of former President Barack Obama. A copy of the letter circulating online in 2021 included language that didn't appear in the original letter, including comments about the "Biden Regime" and "illegal perpetrators,"…

Are all the "I just left the ER...We are officially getting crushed" memes about the COVID-19 Delta variant outbreak part of a fear campaign aimed at the unvaccinated? Not all of them. Some have been altered to refer to a "Ligma" variant, which does not exist. "Ligma" is the set-up for a "knock-knock"-type prank, in which the person who hears…

Is the United States the only country in the world without universal health care? No, that's not true: At least nine other countries did not have viable universal health care as of 2020. The claim appeared as a meme published in a Facebook post (archived here) on July 21, 2021. A makeshift infographic features an image of a primarily gray…

Did Marjorie Taylor Greene say, "Jesus loves the U.S. most, and that is why the Bible is written in English?" No, that's not true: There is no evidence the Republican representative from Georgia ever said that. There is evidence, though, that the quote or variations of it has been around for decades and has been misattributed to mock a range…