Did Buffalo, New York, protester Martin Gugino attempt to scan, capture, interfere, jam or track police radio communications? No, that's not true: No law enforcement agencies have made any allegations against Gugino, and two officers involved
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Truth or Fiction?→ The ‘Asymptomatic Carriers’ of COVID-19 Controversy, Explained
On June 9 2020, what was framed as a World Health Organization (WHO) finding about asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 was shared seemingly everywhere — but within 24 hours, the organization had stepped in to issue an important clarification. A WHO
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
FactCheck.org→ China Didn’t Stop Virus ‘Cold’ Outside Wuhan
In remarks about SARS-CoV-2, President Donald Trump wrongly said China “stopped it cold” from spreading from Wuhan to other parts of China “but they didn’t stop it cold from coming to the United States, Europe and the rest of the wo
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: ‘Protester’ Was Joking When He Told Interviewer George Soros Paid Him To Protest
Was a man serious when he told a journalist that George Soros invited him to lunch, paid him by personal check to protest, and made him rich? No, that's not true: A video of the "paid protester" is a 3-year-old spoof, according to the man who
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: President Trump Did NOT Do All The Following — Contrary to Claims in Viral Message
Did President Trump do all of the things claimed in this viral post listing 10 accomplishments? No, that's not true. While several of the claims are true, many are misleading or false. The claim appeared in memes and text posts, including a po
FactCheck.org→ Does Vitamin D Protect Against COVID-19?
Q: Does vitamin D help protect against COVID-19? A: Some scientists have hypothesized vitamin D might be helpful, but there is no direct evidence that vitamin D can prevent COVID-19 or lessen disease severity. Nevertheless, it should be part of a healt
Truth or Fiction?→ Did a Long Island News Outlet Call George Floyd Graffiti ‘Anti-Government’?
A television station in Long Island, New York used some of George Floyd’s last words to attract social media users to a short story about “anti-government graffiti.” News 12 Long Island’s Twitter post on June 7 2020 did not men
Truth or Fiction?→ Was an Oregon Police Officer Caught Telling an Armed Man How to Avoid Curfew?
Police in Salem, Oregon blamed officer ignorance for a conversation captured on video on June 1, 2020. The video, first aired live by Joe Smothers on his Facebook account on June 1, 2020, chronicles a local protest against extrajudicial killing as wel
Snopes→ In Search Results for ‘Racist,’ Does Trump Appear First on Twitter?
Indeed, he did. We reached out to Twitter to find out why.
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Bill Gates, The CDC, Drs. Fauci And Birx NOT ‘Silent’ On Protests; COVID-19 Lockdowns NOT A ‘Scam’
Have philanthropist Bill Gates, along with Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention been silent amid the widespread protests sparked by George Floyd's death? And does this supposed silence "prove"
Full Fact→ The limits of what we can say about early lockdowns
“Locking down in the early stages of the spread of the virus is linked to a reduced excess death toll.” Financial Times, 28 May 2020 The Financial Times (FT) recently published a new analysis comparing the death rates in countries aff
Full Fact→ The limits of what we can say about early lockdowns
“Locking down in the early stages of the spread of the virus is linked to a reduced excess death toll.” Financial Times, 28 May 2020 The Financial Times (FT) recently published a new analysis comparing the death rates in countries aff
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘Whoever Bought the Domain LouisvilleMetroPolice.com is a Hero’
On June 1 2020, a Facebook user shared the post below, directing fellow users to the domain LouisvilleMetroPolice.com and lauding its creator as a hero: The post was shared more than 10,000 times in under four days, with most commenters tag
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: George Floyd Is NOT Alive And There Is No Evidence Video Of His Death Was Faked
Is George Floyd alive and was video of him dying under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer faked? No, that's not true: Two autopsies -- one by a medical examiner, and a second private examination -- confirmed that Floyd is dead. Video rec
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: NO Evidence Brick Pallets For Riots From ‘ACME Brick Co Own By Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett & Bill Gates’
Did Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Illinois Gov. Jay Robert Pritzker conspire to place pallets of bricks on sidewalks so that rioters could use them at protests? No, that's not true: First, there is no actual evidence that pallets of bricks h
Truth or Fiction?→ Are New York City Police Officers Covering Badge Numbers with Black Bands During George Floyd Protests?
As protests over the death of George Floyd (and many other deaths of Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement) spread to all fifty states, a Facebook post claiming that the New York Police Department (NYPD) officers had obscured their badge nu
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Black South Sudanese Man In Viral Arrest Video Was NOT An FBI Agent
Was a black man who was arrested by police quickly released because the cops learned he was an FBI agent? No, that's not true. The now-viral video of a man being put in handcuffs by Rochester, Minnesota, police officers is a year old, and the
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Photo of Hitler Holding Up Bible Similar to Trump is NOT Real
Is President Trump holding a Bible in his right hand imitating an image of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler posing with a Bible? No, that's not true: The photo of Hitler was digitally altered to add a Bible in his right hand. The original image showed
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Sheriff’s Roster Does NOT Show Derek Chauvin Released From Jail
Was Derek Chauvin, the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd, released from jail? No, that's not true: Chauvin did leave the original place of confinement, the Ramsey County, Minnesota, jail, on May
FactCheck.org→ Examining Biden’s Farm Bankruptcy Claim
Joe Biden claimed that farm bankruptcies increased last year “due largely to Trump’s unmitigated disaster of a tariff war.” International trade was a factor, but there were additional reasons that predate the trade war — such as
Health Feedback→ Facebook posts spread unsupported anonymous claim that face mask use caused a lung infection in a healthy teenager
REVIEW A claim that a healthy 19-year-old grocery store worker was hospitalized for pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissue surrounding the lungs, due to her breathing in carbon dioxide and “her own bacteria” as a result of wearing a face mask,
Truth or Fiction?→ Did Amish People Protest the Death of George Floyd in Minneapolis?
On May 30 2020, the word “Amish” trended on Twitter, due to circulating social media posts claiming Amish people gathered to protest the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis: The Amish came out yesterday in Minneapolis to join the George
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘If You as a White Person Would Be Happy to Receive the Same Treatment That Our Black Citizens Do in This Society, Please Stand!’
A May 15 2020 Facebook post by user Joya Foster Follette (captioned simply “A Repost”) circulated virally after the killing of George Floyd, alongside the following image of text describing white indifference to racism: The text in the i
Health Feedback→ The spread of COVID-19 is not related in any way to the deployment of 5G
REVIEW An article published on 4 May 2020 that went viral over the past few weeks claimed that new data demonstrate that 5G contributed to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, either as a direct cause or by worsening patients’ symptoms. Similar clai
Truth or Fiction?→ Twitter Adds ‘Glorifying Violence’ Label to Trump’s ‘Looting’ and ‘Shooting’ Tweet; White House Blames Fact Checkers
In the early morning hours of May 29 2020, President Trump published two tweets about unrest in Minneapolis over the extrajudicial killing of George Floyd; Twitter later appended a label to the second over its glorification of violence: I can’t st
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: No Evidence Video Of Cop Pinning George Floyd Down Is ‘False Flag’ — Minneapolis Police Cars DO Say ‘POLICE’ On License Plates
Is the video of a Minneapolis police officer pinning down George Floyd before Floyd died a "false flag" because the police car license plate that says "POLICE" is fake? No, that's not true. The video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin
Truth or Fiction?→ Did Colorado Revise its COVID-19 Death Count from 1150 to 878 — and ‘Admit’ They Were Counting Deaths from Other Causes?
A May 16 2020 Facebook post claiming that Colorado had revised its COVID-19 death count from 1150 to 878 and “ADMITTED” that the state was including deaths from other causes in its count to make the virus seem more lethal took off across
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Biden Does NOT Plan To Move Social Security Eligibility Age to 75
Does Joe Biden plan to move Social Security eligibility age to 75? No, that's not true: This story was originally published as satire by a network that trolls conservatives with false claims about liberals and Democrats. The content is often s
Health Feedback→ Facebook posts misinterpret a study of 455 contacts of an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier to claim that asymptomatic spread does not occur
REVIEW A meme being spread by Facebook posts in late May 2020 states that a study which “exposed” an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier to 455 people found that none of the 455 people were infected. Some of the earliest instances of the meme were sha
Snopes→ Trump Threatens Twitter Over Fact Checks: What’s Next?
Twitter’s move and Trump’s reaction raise a host of questions, including why Twitter acted now, how it decides when to use such warnings and what its newly assumed role means for the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
FactCheck.org→ FactChecking Biden’s ‘Breakfast Club’ Interview
In a May 22 radio interview, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made a number of false, misleading or exaggerated claims. Biden falsely suggested that he called for implementing nationwide social distancing restrictions prior to Mar
FactCheck.org→ Trump’s Evidence-Free Attempt to Link Scarborough to Aide’s Death
President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought without evidence to link MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to the death of one of his staffers in 2001, when he was a Republican congressman. The medical examiner found that the death was accidental, due to a heart
Truth or Fiction?→ Obamagate, Explained
Chances are you saw at least a passing reference to “Obamagate” in May 2020, and chances are similar you (like many) struggled to understand what “Obamagate” might actually be. We’ll do our best to break it down. WhatR
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Video Showing Dr. Anthony Fauci Saying, ‘No Reason To Be Walking Around With A Mask’ Is From Early March, NOT Recently
Did Dr. Anthony Fauci say "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask?" Yes, but he said it in early March 2020, and much had changed by May. Federal health experts, including Dr. Fauci began recommending that Americans wear a mask in
Truth or Fiction?→ Was Derek Chauvin Photographed Alongside Donald Trump at a Campaign Rally?
In the aftermath of the extrajudicial killing of 46-year-old George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, social media users spread a photograph online that they claimed showed one of the officers alongside United States President Donald
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Man Wearing MAGA-Style Hat In Photo Or Onstage At Trump Rally Is NOT Minneapolis Cop Derek Chauvin, Involved In Death Of George Floyd
Is a man wearing a MAGA-style red hat that reads "Make Whites Great Again" in a photo the Minneapolis police officer who had his knee on George Floyd's neck as Floyd died? No, that's not true: The photo shared widely on social media is of a no
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Context of Bill Gates TED Talk Quote About Lowering Population Growth By 10 or 15 Percent With Vaccines
Did Bill Gates really suggest eliminating about 10 to 15 percent of the global human population using vaccines during a TED talk in 2010? No, that's not true: Gates' remark was about possible strategies to slow down population growth in order
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: It Is NOT Illegal For Businesses To Require Customers To Wear Masks, Masks Are Not A Health Hazard, And COVID-19 Is Not A Plot To Kill Everyone
Is it against the law for a business to require people to wear masks, do masks make you sick, and is COVID-19 no more deadly than the flu? No, none of that is true: The claims of a woman ranting outside a grocery store about the illegality of
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘McDonald’s Crucifixion’ Image Repurposed as Purportedly ‘Protesting Stay at Home Orders’
In late May 2020, a photograph of three purported protesters of COVID-19 stay-at-home orders circulated which purported to show three men “crucified” outside a McDonald’s. A since-deleted Facebook post originally stated: I have no