Did a video on TikTok show an authentic CNN report on Yale University professors going on strike over student use of AI in classrooms? No, that's not true: There was no evidence at the time of writing on CNN.com or any other reputable media outlet's website that a protest was happening or had happened at Yale. Neither Yale's website nor their social media accounts posted about a protest. The video seems to be an ad for an AI tool that produces notes for its users.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on TikTok on January 16, 2025, with the caption:
Breaking News 🚨 Yale professors are on strike because of student AI usage #yale #collegestudent #University #universitystudent #ai #studytips #breakingnews #turbolearnai
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Feb 12 16:37:14 2025 UTC)
The claim made it appear that its reporting was taken from CNN, as the CNN logo can be seen in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Narration in the 20-second video said Yale professors were on strike because of Yale students using AI in their coursework. The claim mentioned a specific AI tool that students supposedly used and the video narration listed the purported features of the tool.
Searching with keywords in CNN.com's search tool did not yield any evidence that this was a real story (archived here).
A search of Yale University's News website using Google did not result in any evidence either. Evidence of this is below:
(Source: Google.com screenshot taken on Wed Feb 12 17:38:47 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories also searched Google News for any evidence of the claim, finding other fact checks but nothing to confirm the claim (archived here).
No results appeared on Yale's social media pages, as can be seen here, here and here and pictured below.
(Source: Facebook.com screenshot taken on Wed Feb 12 17:44:25 2025 UTC)
(Source: Google.com screenshot taken on Wed Feb 12 17:47:16 2025 UTC)
(Source: X.com screenshot taken on Wed Feb 12 17:48:44 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories has contacted CNN and Yale University's press offices and will update this article if a relevant response is received.
At the time of writing, Reuters had also fact checked this claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims surrounding CNN are here.
