Just one day after a report highlighting an ad for United States President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign based on a claim that Facebook’s own fact-checking partners had already debunked, the social media platform is claiming that al
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Truth or Fiction?→ Lyndon LaRouche: An Explainer
An attempt to troll U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) in early October 2019 led to newfound attention for the devotees of failed political candidate, convicted felon, and one-time Marxist-turned-Democratic-presidential-candidate-turned-f
Truth or Fiction?→ Vietnam Veterans Group: ‘Foreign Criminals’ Targeting Servicemembers for Online Exploitation
An advocacy group for military service members is calling on similar organizations as well as federal officials and social media platforms to take more steps to protect their fellow veterans from being manipulated by online disinformation. “Serv
Truth or Fiction?→ Senate Report: NRA ‘Became a Foreign Asset’ for Russia Before 2016 Election
Despite claims to the contrary, officials with the National Rifle Association (NRA) were pursuing personal business gains as part of a 2015 trip to Moscow involving convicted Kremlin operative Maria Butina, according to a Senate Finance Committee repo
Truth or Fiction?→ United States Navy Confirms Videos Show ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’
A United States Navy spokesperson confirmed that a trio of videos released in 2017 and 2018 show unidentified flying objects, though they are opting to call them “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” or UAP. “The ‘Unidentified Aeria
Truth or Fiction?→ Nevada Man Charged with Plotting Homophobic and Anti-Semitic Shooting Attacks
A 23-year-old Las Vegas man with a history of associating with white supremacists was indicted on September 17 2019 on a federal weapons charge for allegedly planning mass shooting attacks against both a local synagogue and an LGBTQ bar. According to
Truth or Fiction?→ United States Officials Blame ‘Confusion’ After Viral Video of Hurricane Evacuees Turned Away
As video spread of more than a hundred Hurricane Dorian evacuees from the Bahamas being told they could not escape the damage by coming to the United States on September 9, 2019 if they did not have a visa, immigration officials blamed a local ferry c
Truth or Fiction?→ Weather Agency Contradicts Itself Over Trump’s Hurricane ‘Forecast’
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) disavowed its own agency’s findings in a brief statement on September 6 2019, siding with United States President Donald Trump amid allegations that the president may have illegally alte
Truth or Fiction?→ How Much Ground Would the Amazon Rainforest Fires Cover Inside the United States?
While the final toll of their damage has yet to be assessed, enough fires had torn through the Amazon rainforest in August 2019 that a similar outbreak would devastate several regions in the mainland United States. A graphic first posted to Twitter on
Truth or Fiction?→ Instagram Copyright Hoax
A recurring online hoax spread even further on August 20 2019, when a wave of high-profile people posted a fake, long-debunked notice about Instagram’s terms of use that eventually ended up on Secretary of Energy Rick Perry’s Instagram ac
Truth or Fiction?→ Nick Hinton 2012 Thread
A rather nihilistic rumor — that all of humanity died in 2012, and that this is all either a shared hallucination or the afterlife — was not new in late July 2019, but the theory went viral on social media after Twitter user Nick Hinton (@nickhin
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘Bucket of Heads,’ ‘Cooler’ with ‘Genitalia’ Alleged in Body Parts Broker Raid
In July 2019, a number of macabre stories circulated on social media that were based on recent reports that an Arizona facility that was supposed to be processing bodies donated to science was the subject of a gruesome and macabre raid. In July 2019,
Truth or Fiction?→ Luzerne County, Pennsylvania ‘School Lunch Debt’ Controversy
The issue of “school lunch debt” prompted heated debates in July 2019, thanks in part to an ongoing controversy in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The topic of incurring debt for school lunches in the Pennsylvania county came to national att
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,’ Explained
In early July 2019, a number of memes and content related to the Facebook event “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” began circulating on the social network, as well as other social media. The public Facebook page for the event
Truth or Fiction?→ Scams and Hoax Accounts Proliferate on Instagram
April 2019 saw the culmination of a months-long popular uprising in the country of Sudan, when its former president Omar al-Bashir stepped down from his post. The Sudanese military quickly took control of the country in what it called a transitional p
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘Indonesian Reporting Commission’ Facebook Purge Controversy
On the evening of May 15 2019, participants in popular Facebook groups and related pages became swamped by notifications that they were changing en masse from “closed” to “secret” after other groups with high membership counts
Truth or Fiction?→ April Fools’ Day 2019 Roundup
Traditionally, April Fools’ Day is a major “internet holiday” — but in recent years, roundups have largely been composed of a series of commercials designed to go viral on social media sites. Here is a list of April Fools’
Truth or Fiction?→ United States President Donald Trump’s Immigration Speech
On the evening of January 8, 2019, United States President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office on the topic of immigration and what he calls a humanitarian and national security crisis on the country’s southern border as a shut
Truth or Fiction?→ From Central America to the United States Border, a Journey of Lies
A highly publicized caravan of people traveling from Central America in order to turn themselves in at the United States border to request asylum — one of many groups who have done so over the years — has been dogged from start to finish by false
Truth or Fiction?→ Facebook Spread Fake News, Hired ‘Trackers’ to Smear Critics
In mid-November 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell report about Facebook that convulsed both traditional and social media. The beleaguered site has been at the center of scandal after fake news scandal from the mass displacement and genocid
Special Counsel’s Office Asks FBI to Investigate Smear Scheme
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has referred a possible scam to the Federal Bureau of Investigation after a number of reporters were contacted by someone apparently shopping a story about him sexually assaulting unidentified women: 13 days ago I received this tip alleging an attempt to pay off women to make up accusations of sexual misconduct […]
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The Truth About the Migrant Caravan Approaching the United States
On October 18th, 2018, United States President Donald Trump fired off a volley of tweets about a large caravan of people wending their way from Honduras to the southern United States border: These statements were duly picked up and breathlessly repeated by news channels and pundits, spreading the story with crucial context omitted from the story, such […]
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