Publication: analysis
Lead Stories→ Lead Stories Participates In FACTS-NFT Platform For Trading Fact Checks In NFT Format
At Lead Stories we are always open to trying out new technologies and methods when it comes to fact checking. The only way to truly know if something works or not is to try it out. Which is why we are happy to announce we have chosen to p
Lead Stories→ Happy Fact Checking Day!
After we let our hair down a little yesterday for April Fools Day, today we are celebrating Fact Checking Day (like we do every year). Best wishes to all our fellow fact checkers around the world. We are also taking this opportunity to an
Lead Stories→ Today Only: Try Our Free Online Test to Check How Vulnerable You Are To Online Falsehoods
UPDATE: Yes, this was an April Fools Day joke... Check the publication date. The "test" is just some progress bars moving and a message being displayed at the end. Of course a random website doesn't get to access to your browser history
Truth or Fiction?→ Cinnamon Toast Crunch ‘Shrimp Tails’ Twitter Controversy
On March 22 2021, Twitter user Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) alerted the official Twitter presence of Cinnamon Toast Crunch that he had found what appeared to be “shrimp tails” in his box of cereal: Ummmm @CTCSquares – why are there shr
Poynter→ Analysis: Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking experiment reveals problems
On Feb. 5, Twitter flagged a post from controversial YouTuber Tim Pool that said the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged. The platform noted that the claim was disputed and turned off engagement “due to a risk of violence.” But, on Birdwatch
Poynter→ Analysis: Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking experiment reveals problems
On Feb. 5, Twitter flagged a post from controversial YouTuber Tim Pool that said the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged. The platform noted that the claim was disputed and turned off engagement “due to a risk of violence.” But, on Birdwatch
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: It Is Statistically Inevitable Some People Will Get Sick And Die Of Unrelated Causes After Getting The COVID-19 Vaccine
If someone becomes sick or dies after getting a COVID-19 vaccine, is the shot necessarily to blame? No, that's not true: It is statistically inevitable that some people will get sick and die after getting the shot, for reasons that are un
Truth or Fiction?→ How to Fight Disinformation: Part II — Gaslighting
This is part of an ongoing series about how communities can fight back and protect themselves against weaponized disinformation. You can read Part I here. On January 6 2021, a mob of Donald Trump supporters, enraged by corrosive rhetoric and lies fr
Truth or Fiction?→ Citing Conspiracy Theories, Pennsylvania Republicans Refuse to Seat Democratic Party Senator
As Pennsylvania’s legislature convened on January 5 2021 to commence its new two-year session, its Republican majority is blocking Sen. Jim Brewster (a Democrat) of Allegheny County from taking the oath of office: At the heart of the dispute is
Lead Stories→ Merry Christmas From Lead Stories Despite Erroneous Automated Facebook Flags
Several people reported to us that Facebook erroneously added a "Missing Context" warning notice to posts wishing people a "Merry Christmas". The notice included a link to our fact check about certain items that were supposedly in the "St
Truth or Fiction?→ How to Fight Disinformation — Part I: Firehosing
This is part of an ongoing series about how communities can fight back and protect themselves against weaponized disinformation. Any anthropologist can tell you that human lives are created, bounded, and defined by stories: the stories we tell ourselv
Truth or Fiction?→ How to Fight Disinformation: Introduction and Overview
This is the first of a series about how communities can fight back and protect themselves against weaponized disinformation. In 2015 and 2016, new and paranoid strains of political ideology took social media discourse by storm. The details varied by c
Truth or Fiction?→ Trump’s Disinformation Spree After Losing Election Propelled by Social Media
In the days after a resounding popular vote loss to former United States Vice President Joe Biden, sitting president Donald Trump advanced numerous conspiracy theories before beginning to deny the results of the election outright. The first set of con
Truth or Fiction?→ Trump’s Disinformation Spree After Losing Election Propelled by Social Media
In the days after a resounding popular vote loss to former United States Vice President Joe Biden, sitting president Donald Trump advanced numerous conspiracy theories before beginning to deny the results of the election outright. The first set of con
Truth or Fiction?→ As U.S. Election Looms, Agitprop Floods Social Media Platforms
In the days leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the disinformation that has been a hallmark of the Trump campaign, then administration, then campaign again reached new heights with political smears, Soviet-style weaponized conspiracy t
Lead Stories→ Student’s Chart Explaining Wild Conspiracies Trolled To Spread More Conspiracies
Abbie Richards, a climate science student in the Netherlands, was looking with bewilderment at the state of her home country of the United States. So many conspiracy theories echoing, particularly ahead of the election. Struggling to wran
Truth or Fiction?→ Threatening Messages Sent to Democratic Party Voters in Battleground States
In a preview of more organized disinformation campaigns to come in the 2020 U.S. elections and subsequent interregnum period, Democratic Party voters in swing states received threatening emails the week of October 19 2020, ordering them to switch thei
Truth or Fiction?→ The Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop
On October 14 2020, as increasingly bold or desperate attempts from all corners to sway the November 2020 U.S. elections reached a fever pitch, a story appeared in the New York Post about Hunter Biden, son of Democratic Party presidential candidate Jo
Truth or Fiction?→ Does a Potential U.S. Supreme Court Candidate Belong to a Group That Inspired ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’?
News of United States Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death was barely a day old before national figures started to discuss her replacement, despite the opposition of those very same figures to doing so in 2016, after Antonin Scalia
Lead Stories→ Goodbye "Hoax Alert", Hello "Fact Check"
Time for a change Perceptive readers (do we have any other ones?) probably noticed the little red flashes above our fact checking articles have changed this morning. They now read "Fact Check" instead of "Hoax Alert". This change was long
Lead Stories→ Press Release: Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network launches the first-ever coalition of major U.S. fact-checkers to debunk misinformation in English and Spanish
The project, FactChat, will lead to the creation of a WhatsApp chatbot and two Spanish-language fact-checking units. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Sept. 18, 2020) -- Led by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute,
Truth or Fiction?→ Two Killed in Kenosha During Racial Violence Inflamed in Facebook Groups
As racial violence escalated and echoed throughout the United States during the summer of 2020 and “civil defense” groups formed on Facebook and appeared at demonstrations throughout the country, a gunman shot and killed two people during
Truth or Fiction?→ Did WitchTok ‘Baby Witches’ Hex the Moon?
On July 18 2020, a rumor began spreading on “WitchTok” (a TikTok witch community) that a group of “baby witches” endeavored to “hex the moon” and “hex the fae,” setting off moral panics and fevered discu
Lead Stories→ Lead Stories Response to False Accusations of Bias from The National Pulse
After Lead Stories fact checked a story by The National Pulse they published an article accusing us of bias in favor of the Democrats after first quietly correcting their story. Several of the accusations are blatantly false, for example that
Truth or Fiction?→ BabyNames.com Intermittently Crashes After Paying Tribute to Victims of Police Violence
On June 8 2020, a number of social media posts directed users to visit the website BabyNames.com (a source for baby naming ideas), often without preview — and the popularity of the messages meant a lot of people were not immediately aware of why
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘Dad, How Do I?’ YouTube Channel Goes Massively Viral During COVID-19 Lockdown
On May 19 2020, a Facebook user shared the following text, alongside a screenshot of a YouTube channel called “Dad, How Do I?” (with an edit included after the post began rapidly spreading): This YouTuber’s dad walked out on his family w
Lead Stories→ IFCN Press Release: New WhatsApp chatbot unleashes power of worldwide fact-checking organizations to fight COVID-19 misinformation on the platform
Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network led the creation of the chatbot to make its database of more than 4,000 COVID-19 hoaxes easy and accessible to people around the world. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (May 4, 2020) -- The Poynter Institute's
Lead Stories→ Happy 2020 International Fact-Checking Day!
Traditionally, on the day after April Fools Day we celebrate International Fact-Checking Day. This year marks the fourth time this day has been organized, thanks to the fine people at the IFCN. There is a special website for the occasion, chec
Lead Stories→ Locked Out: Losing Your Facebook And Instagram Accounts In Times Of Coronavirus
Two weeks before strict nationwide coronavirus lockdown measures were announced in Britain, Abbie had already been practicing the recommended social distancing. In her flat in the southwest of England, she had plenty of projects in the works a
Lead Stories→ A New Look For Lead Stories
Welcome to the all-new and improved leadstories.com. After five years of the same old design, we decided it was time for a new look. We will, of course, continue to debunk and fact check the latest rumors, falsehoods and questionable memes mak
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Coronavirus: Act Today or People Will Die
Did a story about the grave threat posed by the new coronavirus overstate the threat? No, it didn't. It may sound grim, but it's backed by science, according to medical experts. The story, which has gone viral on social media, appeared in an a
Lead Stories→ ‘Invoice Barr’ and the ‘Second Modification’: How Article Spinning Works
Facebook users have been seeing some strange headlines lately, thanks largely to a clickbaiter from Pakistan. "It's Official: Fox Information Terminates Decide Pirro's Contract" There is a large network of websites using political content to
Truth or Fiction?→ Disinformation Inflames Tensions After United States Kills Iranian Commander
Late in the evening of January 2 2020, the United States announced that it had targeted and killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in a major and dramatic escalation: Iran confirmed the death of one of its most active military fi
Lead Stories→ Aftermath: TheBL.com’s ‘Fake’ Survivors Get New Faces, Duties As Foreign Net Tries To Rise From The Ashes Of Facebook Purge
Editor's Note by Lead Stories Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke: Three days after a virtual apocalypse wiped out hundreds of fake people used to run a foreign pro-Trump network on Facebook, we found signs of life among a few dozen surviving profiles.
Lead Stories→ TheBL Editor Reacts As Facebook Takes Down Foreign ‘Fake People’ Network, Admits ‘We Spent Lots Of Money On Trump’
Just days after Lead Stories revealed hundreds of "fake faces" used to mask a Vietnamese-based network of Facebook profiles and groups promoting political content on American timelines, those "people who do not exist" vanished from the social
Lead Stories→ Fake Faces: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook To Influence 2020 Elections (Part 1)
EDITORS NOTE: Meet Carolina Chaney. Take a good look at her Facebook profile photo. Maybe she looks like your kid's math teacher or your doctor. Privacy settings block us from seeing anything about her, but we do see she is one of 11 adminis
Lead Stories→ Clint Eastwood Death Hoax Tech Eerily Reminiscent of 2017 Rowan Atkinson Death Hoax
Earlier this week Lead Stories already reported that Clint Eastwood was NOT dead, despite what a YouTube video was claiming: Fake News: Clint Eastwood is NOT Dead | Lead Stories Hoax Alert Did Clint Eastwood recently die? No, that is not true
Lead Stories→ That Fake ‘Drunk Pelosi’ Video Was A Dud: How Lead Stories And Facebook Defused A Viral Bomb
A viral video that was digitally altered to make it appear that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was slurring her words and drunk has raised questions about what social platforms can do to limit fake content's spread. Since Lead Stories was the
Lead Stories→ Press Release: Happy Fact-Checking Day! #factcheckingday
Lead Stories is happy to support Fact-Checking Day 2019! ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (April 2, 2019) - In most of the world, April 1 is a day for fools. April 2is a day for facts. Today is International Fact-Checking Day, and the Poynter Institute'sI