Summary All this month, we’re celebrating 15 years of holding politicians accountable. We’ve been writing about false and misleading viral claims for nearly as long. Early on, we mostly fact-checked viral messages in the form of chain email
Search Results (3427) for: died
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Penny Marshall Did NOT Donate Estate to Trump 2020
Did actress, comedian and director Penny Marshall donate her entire estate to Donald Trump's 2020 reelection campaign after passing away today? No, that's not true (at least the donation part, unfortunately she really did die). The story was p
Snopes→ Actress and Director Penny Marshall Dies at Age 75
Marshall died of diabetes complications at her Hollywood Hills home.
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Jon Voight NOT Dead, President Trump Will NOT Speak At Funeral
Did actor Jon Voight die and is President Trump going to speak at his funeral? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a recently launched liberal satire website that posts absurd death hoaxes about conservative and Republican celebriti
Truth or Fiction?→ Can Airbags Send Your Knees ‘Through Your Eye Sockets’ When Deployed?
When the meme below appeared on Facebook via the page The Pink Shorts Movement on November 28 2018, we were skeptical: The text read: DID YOU KNOW: Airbags deploy between 100 & 220 MPH. If you ride with your feet on the dash, you may send your knee
Snopes→ Man Who Claimed Howard Hughes Inheritance Dies in Nevada
Melvin Dummar died never seeing the $156 million that he argued for decades that eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes unexpectedly bequeathed to him for rescuing him on a desert road and driving him nearly three hours to Las Vegas in 1967.
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Young Man Did NOT Stab His Best Friend After He Subscribed To T-Series
Did a young man named Jacob Paul stab his friend Mike Doors for subscribing to the wrong Youtube channel? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a satire website that often posts made up articles for entertainment purposes. It is not r
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Boston Man Did NOT Sue Dyson for $2.3 Million, NOT Partially Emasculated By Vacuum Cleaner
Did Matthew Blair, a 47-year-old man from Boston, sue Dyson for $2.3 million after being partially emasculated by a vacuum cleaner? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a Canadian entertainment website that makes a living by publishi
FactCheck.org→ Trump Didn’t Call Flu Shot a ‘Scam’
Quick Take President Donald Trump did not call the flu shot a “scam,” as is being claimed by a number of widely circulated blog articles. Full Story An article appearing on several websites falsely claims that President Donald Trump once
Truth or Fiction?→ Has a Scientist Who Claimed He Created the First ‘Gene-Edited Babies’ Disappeared?
In November 2018, a scientist from China named He Jankui appeared to have ushered in a new era in humanity — and re-ignited an already heated international conversation about the ethics of editing genes to make “designer babies” — by
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Pornhub NOT Down Due To Massive Amount Of Traffic After ‘No Nut November’
Was Pornhub down because of a massive traffic spike after the internet challenge known as 'No Nut November' ended? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a satire website. PornHub is up, we thoroughly checked, uh, for research... The
Snopes→ Former President George H.W. Bush Dies at Age 94
Family spokesman Jim McGrath says Bush died shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, about eight months after the death of his wife, Barbara Bush.
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Man Did NOT Get Transplant Of Wife’s Brain to Discover Her Lovers
Did a man named Robertson have his brain replaced with his wife's and was that the way in which he found out about her 27 lovers? No, that's just an absurd story and normally it would be too crazy even for us to fact check. But we are doing it
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Man Did NOT Have Woman’s Brain Transplanted and Did NOT Have Five Car Crashes in Two Weeks
Did a man named Phil Robertson from Scranton in Pennsylvania get a brain transplant of a woman who died in a car accident and did he subsequently have five car crashes in two weeks? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a Canadian ent
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Mugabe NOT In a Coma, NOT Rushed to Hospital
Has Robert Mugabe, the former president of Zimbabwe, fallen into a coma and has he been rushed to hospital? No, there hasn't been any official announcement about this, the story seems to have been made up by a website that is known for publis
FactCheck.org→ Trump Misuses Data in 9th Circuit Attack
President Donald Trump wrongly tweeted that the largest federal appellate court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, is “overturned more than any circuit in the country, 79%.” During the 2017 term, the Supreme Court reviewed just 15 of
FactCheck.org→ Bloody Border Patrol Photo is Five Years Old
Quick Take No border patrol officers were seriously injured in an encounter with migrants on Nov. 25, but a 2013 photo circulating online falsely claims to show a recently injured officer. Full Story On Nov. 26, President Donald Trump incorrectly said
Snopes→ Winston Churchill on Muslims and Minority Rights
The first rule of quotations is that people rarely say much after they have died.
Truth or Fiction?→ Was Teargas Used ‘Once a Month’ at the Border Under the Obama Administration?
The days following a cross-border chemical attack by American forces on unarmed members of a caravan of men, women, and children from Central America across the border with Mexico were filled with disinformation and outright propaganda as people and or
Snopes→ ‘SpongeBob’ Creator Stephen Hillenburg Dies at 57
"SpongeBob SquarePants" creator Stephen Hillenburg has died at age 57.
Snopes→ Oprah Winfrey’s Mother, Vernita Lee, Dies at 83
A Winfrey spokeswoman issued a statement saying Lee died at her Milwaukee home on Nov. 22.
Snopes→ Oscar-Winning Director Bernardo Bertolucci Dies at 77
Italian film-maker Bernardo Bertolucci, who won Oscars with "The Last Emperor" and whose erotic drama "Last Tango in Paris" enthralled and shocked the world, has died.
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Simba Is NOT A Vegan In New Lion King Film
Will the character Simba in the remake of The Lion King scheduled for 2019 be vegan? No, that's not true: a fauxtire site copied it from a satire site and the joke went massively viral but that doesn't make it real. The story went viral becau
FactCheck.org→ Meme Resurrects, and Distorts, 2009 Airport Scuffle
Q: Did President Barack Obama in 2009 have a journalist named Brenda Lee removed from Air Force One? A: No. Lee, a newspaper contributor, was physically removed from a press area outside the aircraft in Los Angeles — before Obama arrived. FULL
FactCheck.org→ Trump Repeatedly Errs on California Wildfires
Over the past two weekends, as two major wildfires devastated communities in Northern and Southern California, President Donald Trump has inaccurately blamed the state’s forest management practices for the blazes. He has also wrongly said that raking
Snopes→ Was HHS Drug Pricing Czar Daniel Best’s Death Ruled a Suicide Despite Evidence of Foul Play?
Conspiracy theorists pointed to a medical examiner's report saying Best died of 'multiple blunt force injuries.'
Snopes→ Argument at Chicago Hospital Erupts Into Deadly Shooting
The attacker, Juan Lopez, also died Monday but it was not clear if he took his own life or was killed by police.
Lead Stories→ The Ultimate Christopher Blair and America’s Last Line of Defense Reading List
Yesterday Eli Saslow at the Washington Post wrote a fantastic article about Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has been trolling conservatives and Trump supporters online for years and occasionally even made a living out of it. Blair's ma
Lead Stories→ Fake News: NO Whistleblower Investigating 2018 Broward County Election Fraud Shot Himself Dead
Did a whistleblower investigating 2018 election fraud shoot himself and was no gun recovered from the scene? No, that's not true: a political website run by a marketing firm ran a story about Beranton J. Whisenant, Jr., a federal prosecutor wh
Snopes→ Was the ‘Intern’ Who Took Acosta’s Microphone Actually the Deputy Press Secretary?
Who's in charge of the White House press microphone? Internet sleuths muddied the waters.
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Pedophile Who (Allegedly) Raped 9-Year-Old Girl Did NOT Have Penis Chopped Off Completely By Angry Father
Did Preacher Mase Malgas from East London in South Africa rape a 9-year-old girl and did her father then take revenge by hacking off his penis, leading to his death? While it is true that a 9-year-old girl was raped according to local media re
FactCheck.org→ California Shooting Prompts ‘Crisis Actor’ Conspiracy
Q: Was Susan Orfanos, the mother of a shooting victim in Thousand Oaks, California, also interviewed by news outlets after other mass shootings in 2016 and 2017? A: No. A Facebook post misidentifies two other women as Orfanos. FULL ANSWER Followi
Truth or Fiction?→ Stan Lee, Comic-Book Legend, Dead at 95
Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics co-creator who left an enduring mark on popular culture and changed the world of comic books forever, has died, reports TMZ. Lee’s storied career spanned decades. ComicBook.com reports that before he was deployed durin
Lead Stories→ Fake News: Nairobi Man NOT Caught Red-handed Selling Human Meat in a Butchery
Was a man named Sam Kazemi arrested by Nairobi police in Kenya for selling human meat in a butchery with the bizarre name "Biological Resource Center"? No, that's not true: a fake news website which was launched only a few days ago used an old
FactCheck.org→ Photo Not Related to ‘Caravan’
Q: Are the people shown dragging a Mexican police officer in a viral photo members of the “migrant caravan”? A: No. The photo is from 2014 and shows riots following the disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico. FULL ANSWER Thous
FactCheck.org→ FactChecking Trump’s Twitter ‘Truth’
President Donald Trump says social media is “my form of telling the truth.” In fact, there are many well documented examples of Trump — as a candidate and as president — spreading false information on Twitter. Trump made his rem
FactCheck.org→ Viral Meme Misidentifies Nazi Guard as Soros
Q: Is there a bogus viral meme circulating online that purports to show Holocaust survivor George Soros as a Nazi soldier? A: It is bogus. The photo in the meme is of a Nazi guard who died earlier this year. It is not Soros. SHORT ANSWER Tonight I s
Climate Feedback→ Sky News Australia airs false climate information in misleading video by Rowan Dean
On Saturday Oct. 27, Sky News Australia aired a video by Rowan Dean, editor of The Spectator magazine, on the topic of astronomy and climate change. Rowan Dean’s claim that the planets in our solar system are actually “chasing the Sun in a spiral
Snopes→ Whitey Bulger, Boston Gangster, Found Dead in Prison at 89
Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison.
FactCheck.org→ Video: FactChecking Trump’s Wisconsin Rally
In this week’s fact-check video, CNN’s Jake Tapper looks at seven false or misleading claims President Donald Trump made at a recent campaign rally in Wisconsin. At the Oct. 24 rally, Trump said: “As you know, we started the wall, $