Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers who are either a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) or have been verified as credible by MBFC. Further, we review each fact check for accuracy before publishing. We fact-check the fact-checkers and let you know their bias. When appropriate, we explain the rating and/or offer our own rating if we disagree with the fact-checker. (D. Van Zandt)
Claim Codes: Red= Fact Check on a Right Claim, Blue = Fact Check on a Left Claim, Black = Not Political/Conspiracy/Pseudoscience/Other
Fact Checker bias rating Codes: Red = Right-Leaning, Green = Least Biased, Blue = Left-Leaning, Black = Unrated by MBFC
Disclaimer: We are providing links to fact-checks by third-party fact-checkers. If you do not agree with a fact check, please directly contact the source of that fact check.
Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.
The color red triggers bulls, which is why they charge at a matador’s red flag (muleta) in a bullfight.
Rating:
The idiom “red rag to a bull” means to aggravate someone, make them angry, or incite violence. The phrase “seeing red” implies blind rage. Both phrases may be traced to the Spanish tradition of bullfighting, in which the bullfighter (matador) performs a kind of dance with the bull before killing it with the use of a red flag (muleta) and a sword. It’s a logical enough connection to make: The matador waves the muleta, the bull charges horns-first.
However, many on the internet have raised questions about the apparent correlation: “Is it the red color of the muleta that causes the bull to charge? Or is it simply the movement of the muleta and the present threat of the bullfighter in the arena? And if so, why is the muleta red?”
We looked into the claim, and learned that bulls are not triggered by the color red.
First, bulls are partially colorblind, though not fully color blind. Like all cattle (and most mammals), they are dichromatic, meaning that they can only see two main color types. Unlike humans, they do not possess red retina receptors and can see only in shades of “yellowish-green” and “bluish-purple” light, according to the book “Improving Animal Welfare: A Practical Approach” by Temple Grandin.
(SR Publications)
Matadors only use the red muleta in the third and final stage of the traditional bull fight. They use a magenta and yellow cape (capote) during the first stages of the fight.
So, if bulls can’t see red the way humans do, why do they charge at the red muleta?
In 2007, the Discovery Channel series “MythBusters” aired an episode titled “Red Rag to a Bull” in which they ran bulls through five tests to determine what causes bulls to charge.
They first put a static flag – one white, one blue, one red – in the arena, one at a time. When they released the bull, it charged at all three separate flags, regardless of the color.
They then put all three static flags in the arena at once, and again, the bull charged each of the flags, regardless of the color.
Next, using a remote controlled zip-line system, they compared how the bull reacted to a moving flag. While a red flag hung static in the arena, the MythBusters moved the blue flag across the zip-line. The bull chased after the blue flag, completely ignoring the static red flag.
They then tested each flag held by a human form. The MythBusters placed three foam dummies wearing red, white, or blue with mechanized arms waving a corresponding red, white, or blue flag in the arena. The bull first charged the white dummy, then the blue dummy, and finally, the red dummy.
Lastly, one MythBuster dressed all in red stood motionless in the arena while two professional bullfighters ran around the arena. When they released the bull, it exclusively charged the professional bullfighters, ignoring the motionless person dressed in red.
The experiment’s finding confirmed that movement is what primarily triggers bulls, not color.
Another factor is that bulls have a “flight or fight” response when the matador invades their personal space. According to the International Longhorn Association, bulls will attempt to remove themselves (flight) – or remove the threat (fight) – until the invasion is no longer considered a threat. In the context of understanding how to control cattle, the International Longhorn Association says that:
Understanding the “flight zone,” defined as a cattle’s personal space, is the key to easy and quiet handling. Simply put, when you penetrate the flight zone, the animal moves. When you retreat from the flight zone, the animal stops. The flight zone factor is shared by all species of animals, including humans. When someone, or something, invades our personal space, we attempt to remove ourselves until the invasion is no longer considered a threat. The size of the flight zone is determined by many factors in cattle: the temperament of the animals to begin with, the conditions (corral, pasture), the disposition and number of handlers, etc. just to name a few.
So, if movement and the matador’s encroachment on its personal space is what triggers bulls, as opposed to the color red, why are muletas traditionally red?
Many claim that muletas are red in order to mask the blood spilled when the matador kills the bull by driving a sword between its shoulder blades, with the intent of piercing the heart or aorta.
However, we did not find definitive evidence that muletas are red to mask the bull’s blood. The muleta is traditionally red; the use of both the capote and the muleta are culturally significant to the practice of bullfighting going back centuries. According to Madrid Bullfighting:
The capote and the muleta are not just tools used by the matador; they are also symbols of the bullfighting tradition in Madrid. The bright colors and intricate designs of the capote and the muleta are instantly recognizable and are an important part of the spectacle of the bullfight.
We should note that in the first two-thirds of the bullfighting performance, when the matador uses the magenta-and-yellow capote, he, along with the picador on horseback and three banderilleros, do draw the bull’s blood prior to the final third. The picador stabs the bull first with the intention of weakening its neck and shoulder muscles. The banderilleros stab the bull in its shoulders next, using two banderillas, or sharp barbed sticks. Both of these stabbings occur prior to the final third, when the matador (literally meaning “killer”) uses the red muleta and delivers the final sword thrust, which undoubtedly draws more blood than that drawn by the picador and banderilleros.
We reached out to multiple historians and scholars of Spanish history and bullfighting inquiring why muletas are red, and will update this story if we receive a response.
In sum, the color red, specifically, does not trigger bulls. Rather, movement and the threat of the matador’s presence sends bulls into a fight-or-flight response, causing them to attack.
Sources
Be like a Red Rag to a Bull. 12 June 2024, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/be-like-a-red-rag-to-a-bull.
Is Red the True Reason Bulls Become Angry in a Bullfight? https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-10-23/Is-red-the-true-reason-bulls-become-angry-in-a-bullfight–L1bLt2SyvC/index.html#:~:text=a%20red%20muleta.%20/-,VCG%20Photo,(Cover%20image%20via%20VCG). Accessed 13 June 2024.
ITLA – Longhorn_Information – Handling. 11 May 2010, https://web.archive.org/web/20100511090201/http://www.itla.net/index.cfm?sec=Longhorn_Information&con=handling.
Publications, S. R. ‘EXPERIENCE COW VISION!’ SR Publications, 28 July 2023, https://www.srpublication.com/experience-cow-vision/.
See Red – Meaning & Origin Of The Phrase. 11 Dec. 2023, https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/see-red.html.
The Importance of the Capote and the Muleta in Madrid Bullfighting – Madrid Bullfighting. https://madridbullfighting.com/blog/the-importance-of-the-capote-and-the-muleta-in-madrid-bullfighting/. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Watch MythBusters Season 5 | Prime Video. https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B001PNZDLW/ref=atv_dp_sign_suc_3P?tag=Tyche-2669-20. Accessed 13 June 2024.
A photo taken inside an historically Black church in Michigan authentically shows the audience at a “Black Americans for Trump” event in June 2024.
Rating:
In mid-June 2024, a photo purportedly taken at a Black church in Michigan, as part of an event with signs that read “Black Americans for Trump,” went viral on several social media platforms, thanks in part to the apparent lack of Black Americans in the audience:
The claims regarding the context behind this photo were true. Detroit Public Radio reporter Russ McNamara shot the photo at a Black church outside of Detroit, Michigan, at an event with signs displayed that read, “Black Americans for Trump.” McNamara shared the photo alongside other photos of the June 15, 2024, event on X:
The authenticity was further confirmed by pictures taken by other photographers showing the same crowd, like this photo by Scott Olson for Getty Images:
Another Olson photograph captured outside the church shows the aforementioned “Black Americans for Trump” sign:
As Newsweek reported, “critics accused Trump of filling the historically Black church with white supporters and even ‘staging’ the event to show a robust crowd.”
McNamara said on X that the event was attended “at best” by an equal number of Black and white people. “Of the 8 Black Trump voters I talked to,” he added, “just one was from Detroit and zero were congregants.” A wider view of the audience can be seen in video from the event:
Rev. Lorenzo Sewell, senior pastor of the 180 Church that hosted Trump’s event, described to the Detroit Free Press the sequence of events leading up to his church’s involvement:
“I thought I was being punked,” [Rev. Lorenzo] Sewell, senior pastor of 180 Church, told the Free Press on Friday. “I literally thought it was a joke.”
But after realizing the opportunity was real, Sewell decided to accept, seeing it as a chance to have the voices of marginalized Detroiters heard by a national campaign.
His nondenominational church is located on Detroit’s west side, near Grand River and Interstate 96, in a struggling area he said has high rates of mental illness, drug addiction and poverty.
Because the photos genuinely come from an event targeting “Black Americans for Trump” that was held at an historically black church on June 15, 2024, we rate the claim as “True.”
Is President Joe Biden’s sister married to the owner of Dominion Voting Systems? No, but a viral Instagram video proclaims otherwise.
“Dominion voting machines: Biden’s Sister Is Married To Stephen Owens, Who Owns Dominion Voting Systems,” text on the June 8 video said. “Does Anyone Else See This As a Huge Conflict Of Interest?”
The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.)
Biden’s only sister, Valerie Biden Owens, is married to John “Jack” Owens, not Stephen Owens.
According to her website, Jack Owens is an attorney and businessman. The pair married on Oct. 11, 1975, at a church at the United Nations Plaza in New York, a New York Times wedding announcement says. Jack Owens and President Biden were classmates at the Syracuse University College of Law and both graduated in 1968.
Stephen Owens is the co-founder of Staple Street Capital, whose investments include Dominion Voting Systems. The voting company sells election hardware and software to state and local governments in the U.S. and Canada. After the 2020 elections, Dominion Voting Systems was the subject of misinformation by conservatives. In 2023, Dominion reached a $787 million settlement with Fox News over false election claims.
Stephen Owens and Jack Owens are not related.
Reuters, The Associated Press and USA Today have also debunked this claim. A spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems referred PolitiFact to the Reuters story, which includes a Dominion representative saying that Stephen Owens and Jack Owens are not related.
We rate the claim that Joe Biden’s sister is married to Dominion Voting Systems’ owner False.
Social media users are claiming a Canadian cancer charity replaced reproductive anatomy terminology with gender-neutral language. But this misconstrues the organization’s guidance for treating transgender and nonbinary patients.
On June 7, the conservative X account Libs of TikTok posted, “UNREAL. In order to be ‘inclusive,’ the Canadian Cancer Society will no longer use the term ‘cervix’ and instead use the term ‘front hole.’”
Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren made a similar statement in a video shared June 17 on X: “I don’t know what’s dumber or more delusional, the fact that some are trying to make ‘front hole’ terminology a thing, or that a leading cancer charity, the Canadian Cancer Society, has apologized for not using it and instead referring to a woman’s cervix as a ‘cervix.’”
Lahren’s video showed a screenshot of a June 9 Daily Mail article headline that said, “Top cancer charity apologizes for using word ‘cervix’ instead of trans-friendly ‘front hole.’”
The Daily Mail article cites an archived page of the Canadian Cancer Society’s website that provides information for trans and nonbinary patients about getting screened for cervical cancer.
At the bottom of the archived page, under a section titled, “words matter,” the organization states, “We recognize that many trans men and non-binary people may have mixed feelings about or feel distanced from words like ‘cervix.’ You may prefer other words, such as ‘front hole.’ We recognize the limitations of the words we’ve used while also acknowledging the need for simplicity. Another reason we use words like ‘cervix’ is to normalize the reality that men can have these body parts too.”
The archived page did not say “cervix” would no longer be used. The Daily Mail story may have misconstrued the language about “limitations” as a statement of regret, but the organization was explaining why it uses the word “cervix.” The words “apology,” “apologize” and “sorry” are not mentioned on the webpage, which was archived April 4.
The page has since been updated and the “words matter” section was removed. The only mention of the term “front hole” appears under a question about whether trans men and nonbinary people assigned female at birth should get screened for cervical cancer.
The page recommends these individuals talk with their health care providers about screenings and says, “Anyone with a cervix can get cervical cancer. The cervix is at the top of the vagina. Some trans men may call the vagina the front hole.”
When PolitiFact contacted the Canadian Cancer Society, we were referred to the organization’s June 12 statement on cancer information it provides to the trans community.
“We support all people with all cancers in communities across the country, regardless of age, race, language, education, geography, socio-economic status, gender identity or sexual orientation,” the statement said. “We use medical terminology, while also providing cancer information using plain language and formats to meet people’s unique needs and help them navigate their questions about cancer risk.”
In 2023, PolitiFact checked False claims that health professionals were being “urged” to call vaginas “bonus holes” to avoid offending transgender or nonbinary patients.
Viral claims that the Canadian Cancer Society apologized and will “no longer use the term ‘cervix’ and instead use the term ‘front hole’” are based on an inaccurate interpretation of an archived webpage. The organization was explaining why it uses “cervix.” We rate the claim False.
Former President Donald Trump has made illegal immigration and its impact on the U.S. a focus of his campaign – but several of his talking points are wrong or misleading. Here’s what we found among his immigration claims at recent events in the electoral swing states of Arizona and Nevada.
Trump falsely said that a proclamation by President Joe Biden to limit asylum eligibility “establishes an annual minimum of approximately 2 million illegal alien border crossers.”
He distorted how a mobile app for asylum appointments operated, saying it allows “free entry to be released into the United States at the push of a button.” Applicants are screened, and appointments are limited.
Trump offered wildly exaggerated border crossing statistics. For instance, he said that in April, “border crossings were up 1,000% compared to the same month last year.” Apprehensions, which are a proxy for illegal crossings, were down by 30%.
He distorted reporting by the New York Times to misleadingly claim that “88,000” unaccompanied minors who came to the U.S. illegally and were processed by the Biden administration “are missing” and “many of those children are dead.”
Trump claimed that “more drugs are coming into our country right now than at any time in our history.” Federal data for drug seizures by weight are trending down under Biden. As a proxy for drug smuggling, that data suggest that fewer drugs, not more, are coming into the country. Fentanyl seizures, however, have increased significantly under both Trump and Biden.
Trump claimed that “300,000 people are dying a year” in the U.S. from drugs, and said the figure is “probably more than that.” A federal agency reported that there were 107,941 drug overdose deaths in 2022, and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researcher previously told us that any undercount “should be relatively small.”
He falsely claimed that “virtually 100% of the new jobs under Biden have also gone to illegal aliens.” Since Biden became president in January 2021, employment of U.S.-born workers has increased more than employment of foreign-born workers, which includes those in the U.S. legally.
Trump claimed that real, meaning inflation-adjusted, income and wages for the Black population are down 6% under Biden. But the most recent government data show real income is up for Black households, while real wages for full-time Black workers are down by less than what Trump said.
The former president claimed that illegal immigration under Biden had created “flat-out economic warfare” on Black and Hispanic Americans by “taking the jobs” of those workers, and he said unions were “being absolutely slaughtered.” Employment and union membership data show no evidence of that.
Trump first spoke at a June 6 town hall in Phoenix hosted by groups affiliated with Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit organization. Three days later, he spoke at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on June 9.
We’re focusing only on Trump’s immigration-related assertions in those speeches. In addition to the claims below, Trump repeated his unsubstantiated talking point that “the entire world is emptying their prisons and jails, insane asylums, and mental institutions” and sending those people to the U.S. He has provided no evidence for that explosive claim, as we’vewrittenseveraltimes.
Biden’s Immigration Proclamation
In his Phoenix remarks, Trump wrongly said that a recent Biden proclamation to limit asylum eligibility “establishes an annual minimum of approximately 2 million illegal alien border crossers,” and he further inaccurately claimed that those crossing the southern border illegally are “coming in totally unchecked, unvetted.”
Biden’s June 4 immigration proclamation limits asylum eligibility for those caught trying to cross the southern border illegally when the number of people apprehended reaches a daily average of 2,500 encounters or more for seven straight days. The new rules went into effect immediately, because apprehensions were already higher than that threshold.
As we’ve explained, the proclamation allows the Department of Homeland Security to deny asylum eligibility and remove migrants who are apprehended when the limits are in effect. There are exemptions, according to DHS — including unaccompanied children, victims of “a severe form of trafficking,” noncitizens with visas or other lawful means of entering the country, and noncitizens who enter at a legal port of entry using a DHS-approved process, such as the CBP One app (more on that later). There is also a broader exemption for people who “express a fear of return to their country or country of removal, a fear of persecution or torture, or an intention to apply for asylum” if they “establish a reasonable probability of persecution or torture in the country of removal.”
The restrictions will be lifted 14 days after the daily average of apprehensions drops to 1,500 encounters or less for seven consecutive days. But the daily monthly average hasn’t been that low since July 2020.
None of this calls for a minimum 2 million border crossers. Even if the 2,500 threshold is reached every day for a year, that totals under 1 million, and those apprehended are processed and screened, not simply allowed to come into the country no questions asked.
Trump’s claim is similar to his false claims about the bipartisan Senate immigration deal earlier this year, which would have restricted asylum eligibility when apprehensions reached 5,000 per day for a week. As Republican Sen. James Lankford, one of the architects of that failed legislation, said of the measure in February, “It’s not that the first 5,000 [migrants encountered at the border] are released, that’s ridiculous. The first 5,000 we detain, we screen and then we deport. … If we get above 5,000, we just detain and deport.”
The idea that migrants are “coming in totally unchecked, unvetted” — either before or after Biden’s proclamation — is also wrong. Immigration experts explained to us that those who are apprehended trying to cross illegally are interviewed, have criminal record checks and provide biometric data. Depending on their circumstances and asylum claims, migrants could be released with a notice to appear in immigration court, processed for expedited removal or asked if they want to be returned to Mexico.
At both his Phoenix and Las Vegas events, Trump repeated a false claim he has often made — that the U.S. “had the most secure border we’ve ever had” when he left office. “When I ran in 2016, I ran largely on the border. Border was really bad. I fixed it,” he said in Phoenix. Apprehensions on the southern border, figures used as a proxy for illegal immigration, went up under Trump by 14.7% in his last year compared with 2016.
CBP One Mobile App
The Biden administration has tried to steer those seeking asylum to an application method at legal ports of entry that requires people to sign up for a limited number of appointments through the CBP One mobile app. They are then screened at those appointments. Trump claimed that the app allows “free entry to be released into the United States at the push of a button. Pretty hard, you go like this, ‘Ding, I’m here.’ Congratulations. Welcome to America.”
That’s not how it works.
Trump also falsely said that Biden’s recent immigration proclamation “dramatically expands” the CBP One app, but it doesn’t. Appointments have been capped at 1,450 per day since last June. The Customs and Border Protection press office confirmed to us that there has been no change in the number of daily appointments available.
The CBP One app was launched in January 2023 to accept appointments for migrants who are in Mexico and want to request asylum or parole. DHS calls this “safer, humane, and more orderly” than processing between ports of entry, where migrants cross the border illegally and wait to be apprehended.
Migrants must submit information about themselves in order to get the appointment, including contact information and a photo. At the appointment, they are screened and could be subject to expedited removal, but the majority are released into the U.S. with a notice to appear in immigration court, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that researches immigration issues, told us when we wrote about immigration in February.
As of the end of April 2024, more than 591,000 people have made appointments with the app, CBP says.
Border Stats
Trump offered some wildly exaggerated statistics on illegal border crossings in his Phoenix remarks.
He claimed that 18 million people had been allowed into the U.S. under Biden. “I think that’s the real number as of now, 18 million people.” There’s no evidence for such a figure. We asked the Trump campaign about this claim, and others cited in this article, but we didn’t receive a response.
According to data from the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, there were 6.5 million apprehensions by Border Patrol of migrants trying to cross the southern border illegally from February 2021, the month after Biden took office, to February of this year. (The figure doesn’t correspond to that same number of people because of repeat crossing attempts by the same people. For example, the recidivism rate was 27% in fiscal year 2021, according to the most recent figures from CBP.)
Trump speaking at the “Chase the Vote” town hall at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 6. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Over that 2021-2024 time period, there were also 923,000 “inadmissibles” who arrived at legal ports of entry but didn’t have legal permission to enter the U.S. Of those 7.4 million total encounters at the border, 2.9 million were removed by CBP and 3.2 million were released with notices to appear in immigration court or report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the future, or other classifications, such as parole.
As we’ve explained before, there are also estimates for “gotaways,” or migrants who crossed the border illegally and evaded the authorities. Based on an average annual apprehension rate of 78%, which DHS provided to us, that would mean there were an estimated 1.8 million gotaways from February 2021 to February 2024.
The gotaways plus those released with court notices or other designations would total 5 million, a far cry from 18 million. There were also 407,500 transfers to HHS, which is responsible for children who cross the border on their own, unaccompanied by adult family members or legal guardians, and 883,000 transfers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE transfers include those who are then booked into ICE custody, enrolled in “alternatives to detention” (which include technological monitoring) or released by ICE. So, we don’t know how many of those were released into the country with a court notice. But even if we include those figures, it still doesn’t get us to anywhere near 18 million.
Also, these figures reflect what initially happens when migrants have come to the border. In many cases, the final decision on whether a migrant will be allowed to stay or will be deported comes later, particularly since there is a yearslong backlog of immigration court cases.
Trump also falsely claimed that in April, “border crossings were up 1,000% compared to the same month last year, 1,000% compared to last year. And by the way, last year, it was 1,000% compared to the year before.” In April, apprehensions of those trying to cross illegally were 30% lower than they were in April 2023. And the April 2023 figure was down 9.6% compared with the year before.
Migrant Minors
In February 2023, the New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services was not able to get in contact with more than 85,000 children whom department officials had placed with relatives or other sponsors in the U.S. after the minors illegally came to the country unaccompanied in 2021 and 2022.
In Phoenix, Trump distorted those facts and claimed without any evidence that all of the children “are missing” and that “many” of them are now deceased.
“Because of Biden’s policies, millions and millions of children have been separated from their families and pushed into the hands of the coyotes and the cartels,” Trump said. “And, you know, 88,000, I don’t know if you — if it were me, it would be the biggest story — 88,000 children are missing. … 88,000 children are missing under this administration, and they have no idea. And unfortunately, many of those children are dead.”
That’s not what the Times reported. Its article said: “While H.H.S. checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by The Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.”
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, the HHS agency that manages the program for unaccompanied children, says its “custodial relationship with the child terminates” once he or she is placed with a sponsor. However, before closing a case file, ORR says that 30 days after releasing the child, the office should make a “Safety and Well Being Follow Up Call” and document the results, including noting if the child or sponsor could not be reached “after reasonable efforts have been exhausted.”
But if a call goes unanswered or is not returned, that doesn’t necessarily mean the child is missing. The Times said it interviewed more than 100 minors who had been released from ORR custody. Many were working dangerous jobs “in violation of child labor laws.”
As for deaths, the Times said it “found a dozen cases of young migrant workers killed since 2017.” There was little information provided on when they died or who was president when they came to the U.S. Based on the details the Times provided for four deaths that were highlighted in its story, we were able to determine that two ofthe children died in work-related accidents during the Trump administration. And at least one of those two reportedly came to the U.S. during the Obama administration. The two other deaths highlighted in the Times story occurred, or likely occurred, during the Biden administration.
The Washington Post Fact Checker wrote about this claim, noting that HHS also couldn’t reach children under the Trump administration.
Drug Smuggling
Trump claimed that there has been a large increase in drugs coming into the U.S. because drug smugglers do not fear the Biden administration.
“More drugs are coming into our country right now than at any time in our history, times five or times six,” he said in Phoenix. “We’ve never had massive amounts of drugs pouring into our country. We fought it like hell.”
And in Las Vegas, he claimed that under Biden “now the drugs are pouring into our country.”
Comprehensive data on the total quantity of illicit drugs smuggled into the U.S. do not exist. But CBP does track the amount of drugs seized by border officials, most of which comes through legal ports of entry. Some use the seizure data as a proxy for how much enters the country undetected. When more drugs are seized, that is seen as an indication that more drugs are coming into the country.
Trump may have been referring only to fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that is lethal in small doses. He mentioned that drug in his remarks in Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The amount of fentanyl seized by border officials has increased by about 462% under Biden, going from almost 4,800 pounds seized in fiscal year 2020 to roughly 27,000 pounds in fiscal 2023. There were about 700 pounds of fentanyl seized in FY 2016, the last full fiscal cycle before Trump took office, so there was a 586% increase in seizures of that drug when he was president.
Overall, federal data show that the total amount of drugs seized nationwide has declined each fiscal year under Biden.
As we’ve written, there were nearly 1.1 million pounds of drugs seized by the Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations in fiscal 2020, Trump’s last full fiscal cycle as president. That was an increase from the 901,000 pounds of drugs seized in fiscal 2019.
Under Biden, there were about 913,000 pounds of drugs seized in fiscal 2021, which is the highest total during his administration. The amount of drugs seized then declined to almost 656,000 pounds in fiscal 2022 and about 549,000 pounds in fiscal 2023.
As of April, more than 320,000 pounds of drugs had been seized through the first seven months of fiscal 2024. That’s more drugs seized than in the same period the prior year, but it’s still well below the totals interdicted during the end of Trump’s presidency.
Drug Overdoses
Trump again inflated the number of people dying each year in the U.S. from drug overdoses, claiming that such deaths are significantly underreported.
In Phoenix, he said: “300,000 people are dying a year. Those are the real numbers. They like to say 100[,000]. They like to say 90[,000]. It’s been that number for a long time. It’s 300,000 people, and it’s probably more than that, and we’re going to have to take very strong action because we can’t let that happen.”
Officially, there were 107,941 deaths from drug overdoses in 2022, up from 106,699 in 2021, according tothe most recent figures from the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total did not top 90,000 deaths until 2020, during Trump’s administration.
When we fact-checked a similar Trump claim in March 2023, Christopher Ruhm, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, told us that he had “not yet seen convincing evidence that the number of overall drug deaths is drastically underreported.” Ruhm wrote in a 2018 paper that incomplete death certificates previously led to drug deaths from opioids being “understated,” but in our interview with him he said that “undercount has fallen over time” because the reporting on death records improved.
Merianne Spencer, then a CDC researcher, also told us last year that there was no evidence hundreds of thousands of drug-related deaths were not being counted.
“While we believe that there could be an undercount due to some overdose deaths still pending investigation at the close of the mortality files at the end of each year, any undercount should be relatively small,” she said in an email.
Native- and Foreign-Born Employment
In Las Vegas, Trump falsely claimed that all of the jobs added in the U.S. during the Biden administration have been filled by people residing in the U.S. illegally.
“Virtually 100% of the new jobs under Biden have also gone to illegal aliens. Did you know that?” Trump said in his remarks. “100% of the new jobs have gone to illegal aliens, can you believe it?”
But he’s wrong. According to estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total employment for the native-born population has increased by almost 7.4 million under Biden. The employment level for people born in America was at 123,065,000 in January 2021, when Biden took office, and it was up to 130,445,000, as of May 2024.
Meanwhile, employment of foreign-born workers increased by about 5.6 million – from an estimated 25,318,000 in January 2021 to 30,896,000 in May 2024. BLS says the foreign-born population, meaning those who weren’t citizens at birth, includes “legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants.” There is no employment breakdown for just people in the U.S. illegally.
Trump may have been referring to a February analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that favors low immigration, which found that, when comparing the fourth quarter of 2019 with the fourth quarter of 2023, the U.S.-born employment level declined by 183,000 and the immigrant employment level increased by 2.9 million.
But Biden did not become president until more than a year after the fourth quarter of 2019; he took office when the U.S. economy was still recovering from millions of job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. So, the CIS analysis does not illustrate the change in employment under Biden. It also does not include employment data for only people without legal status.
Black Income and Wages
After falsely claiming that “illegal aliens” have taken all of the new jobs, Trump said, “Meanwhile, real wages of African Americans and the workers from all over the world that came here legally, they’re down 6% under Crooked Joe.”
Three days before that in Phoenix, Trump claimed that “real income for African Americans is down more than 6%” under Biden.
But as of 2022, the real median income for Black-only households was $52,860, according to the latest inflation-adjusted figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. That was up about 2% from $51,880 in 2020 and $51,750 in 2019. (Figures for 2023 should be out in September.)
On the other hand, more recent data from the BLS show that real wages for Black Americans are down – but by less than Trump claimed.
For Black full-time workers, real median usual weekly earnings, when adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, were $293 in the first quarter of 2024. That was down 3.6% from $304 during the fourth quarter of 2020.
However, some economistsargue that wage statistics were inflated in 2020 because low-wage workers disproportionately lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. With millions of low-wage workers out of the workforce, average and median wages appeared to increase because workers with higher earnings kept or gained jobs.
Compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, which was before the pandemic started in early 2020, the real weekly earnings of Black full-time workers are currently down just 0.3%.
Black and Hispanic Unemployment
Unemployment rates under Biden — overall and by race — are low, as we recently reported. The rates for Black and Hispanic Americans reached or tied record lows.
Yet Trump claimed, without evidence, that migrant border crossings under Biden had created “flat-out economic warfare” on Black and Hispanic Americans by “taking the jobs” of those workers.
He also claimed, as he said in Phoenix, “Unions are being absolutely slaughtered because people are coming in, and they’re taking those union jobs.” The data on union membership rates don’t show a slaughtering in recent years.
In Las Vegas, Trump claimed that “with his border nightmare, Joe Biden is also waging an all-out war on the workers of America, especially African-Americans and Hispanic Americans.” In Phoenix, he added, “These people are taking the jobs of African Americans. They’re taking the jobs of Hispanic Americans, and it’s — they’re tremendously affected.”
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t support that.
The Black unemployment rate was 9.3% when Biden took office, and it’s now 6.1% as of May. Over that time, it hit a record low of 4.8% in April 2023. The current 6.1% rate is the same as the pre-pandemic rate in February 2020.
The Hispanic or Latino unemployment rate was 8.5% when Biden took office and has dropped to 5% as of May. In September 2022, it tied a record rate of 3.9%, which was first hit under the Trump administration. The rate now is 0.7 percentage points above the pre-pandemic rate of 4.3%.
There are also more job openings in the U.S. than job seekers: 8.1 million job openings in April and 6.5 million unemployed job seekers the same month.
The number of unemployed Black Americans has gone down under Biden, from 1.9 million people when he took office to 1.3 million in May. The level of Hispanic or Latino unemployment dropped from 2.5 million to 1.6 million over the same time period.
As for Trump’s claim that people who have crossed the border illegally are taking union jobs, the available statistics don’t back that up, either. Our fact-checking colleagues at Politifact interviewed economists and labor experts on this issue, who said migrants who come to the U.S. aren’t likely to take union jobs and instead work in lower level jobs such as being a day laborer.
A 2022 Cato Institute working paper posited that immigration overall from 1980 to 2020 led to a 5.7 percentage point reduction in union density in the U.S. because immigrants “have lower preferences for unionization and increase diversity in the working population that, in turn, decreases solidarity among workers.” That paper doesn’t show immigrants are taking union jobs, but rather having an effect on unionization. (And one of the authors of the report noted on the Cato website that there were other issues to consider, such as whether “unions reduce immigration rather than immigration reducing unions.”)
Regardless, the yearly rates of union membership among wage and salary workers under Biden don’t show evidence that unions are being “slaughtered,” as Trump claimed.
In 2023, 10% of wage and salary workers were union members, down from 10.8% in 2020, the year before Biden took office. But the rate has been declining for several decades; it was 20.1% in 1983, according to BLS figures.
The rate declined under Trump, too, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The union membership rate was 10.7% in 2016, before Trump took office, and it dropped to 10.3% in 2019. The following year, when a union job could have offered more security than others during the pandemic, as researchers found, the rate went up to 10.8%.
The question of how immigration overall, not only illegal immigration, affects the U.S. economy and jobs has long been debated and studied. We wrote about the issue in 2010 and found: “Study after study has shown that immigrants grow the economy, expanding demand for goods and services that the foreign-born workers and their families consume, and thereby creating jobs. There is even broad agreement among economists that while immigrants may push down wages for some, the overall effect is to increase average wages for American-born workers.”
A report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released in 2016 largely reiterated those conclusions. It said there was “little evidence that immigration significantly affects the overall employment levels of native-born workers,” according to a press release on the report, and that the impact on wages over a 10-year or longer period was “very small.” However, the National Academies said there was “some evidence that recent immigrants reduce the employment rate of prior immigrants” and that if there is a negative impact on wages, it’s “most likely to be found for prior immigrants or native-born workers who have not completed high school—who are often the closest substitutes for immigrant workers with low skills.”
Those conclusions, too, are for all of the foreign-born in the U.S., not solely those who entered the U.S. illegally.
Those in the country illegally don’t have legal authorization to work — but many do anyway. A 2022 Congressional Research Service report said most of those in the country illegally participate in the labor force, and their jobs are “highly concentrated in certain industries, including agriculture, construction, leisure/hospitality, services, and manufacturing.” (Those who have applied for asylum have to wait six months to receive a work authorization.)
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.
In 1923, scientist Frederick Banting sold his insulin patent for $1, saying, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.”
Rating:
What’s True
Canadian scientist Frederick Banting and his co-discoverers of insulin sold their patent to the University of Toronto for $1 in a deal that was finalized in 1923.
What’s False
However, there is no evidence that Banting ever said “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.”
On June 12, 2024, a Reddit post on the r/BeAmazed subreddit claimed that, in January 1923, Frederick Banting sold his insulin patent for $1, saying, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.” As of this writing, the post has received around 23,000 upvotes.
The alleged quote has circulated widely for years. The World Health Organization’s Facebook page shared an image featuring it on June 11, 2024. U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, posted an abridged version on X in 2019. The quote also appears in a number of published books and scholarly journal articles.
Despite the quote’s prevalence across different types of media, Snopes found no evidence that Banting, the Canadian scientist who won a Nobel Prize for discovering insulin, ever said it. However, it is true that Banting and two colleagues sold their patent for the lifesaving drug for just $1 in 1923. As such, we rate this claim a “Mixture” of truth and falsity.
The original source for the quote appears to be a children’s biography of Banting titled “The Discoverer of Insulin: Dr. Frederick Banting,” written by I.E. Levine and published in 1959, 18 years after Banting died in a plane crash. Neither the quote nor any variation thereof appears in any of the sources cited in the bibliography at the end of the book.
The quote also does not appear in any of the biographies of Banting written for adults, such as Michael Bliss’s acclaimed “Banting: A Biography,” or in any legitimate media coverage of Banting from either before or after his death. As such, the likeliest explanation for the origin of the quote is that Levine, the author of biographical books for children, used artistic license to imagine something Banting might have said.
The details of Banting’s sale of the patent for insulin, on the other hand, are well-documented and can be substantiated.
The patent’s buyer, the University of Toronto, has made digital scans of the original patent assignment document available online. The amount the University of Toronto paid Banting and his colleagues Charles Herbert Best and James Bertram Collip for the patent, $1, is clearly noted on the document’s first full page.
(University of Toronto Libraries)
Eagle-eyed readers might note that the assignment document is dated Dec. 19, 1922, not 1923. The document’s cover sheet explains why 1923 is the year typically given for the sale: The transfer of the patent from Banting and his colleagues to the University of Toronto was not formally recorded in the Ottawa Patent and Copyright Office until Jan. 1, 1923, so the patent technically remained in the three scientists’ names until then.
According to the Bank of Canada’s Inflation Calculator, that $1 in 1923 would be worth around 17.46 Canadian dollars ($12.70) in 2024 — a substantial increase in terms of percent change, but still a remarkably low price for the patent for a drug of critical importance.
What about the reason Banting and his colleagues decided to sell the insulin patent for so little money? In an article published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in 2021, diabetes researchers Gary F. Lewis and Patricia L. Brubaker explained the rationale for the sale, which was more complicated than the simple altruism suggested by memes about Banting.
In short, the sale was part of a larger agreement between the scientists, the University of Toronto and U.S. drug company Eli Lilly intended to ramp up production of the drug in order to meet demand as quickly as possible. As part of the terms of the agreement, Eli Lilly committed to licensing insulin from the University of Toronto and manufacturing and distributing the drug free of charge to certain hospitals for one year.
After that year, Eli Lilly was left with an effective monopoly on U.S. rights to the drug, which it was legally free to profit from. According to Lewis and Brubaker, in the first year the company was allowed to charge for the drug, Eli Lilly brought in more than $1 million, equivalent to around $18.4 million in 2024, from insulin sales alone. In other words, although Banting did not make a direct profit from insulin sales, the drug became highly profitable for Eli Lilly as a result of the terms of the sale.
Eli Lilly remains one of the three main suppliers of insulin in the U.S., with the others being Sanofi and Novo Nordisk. Following price caps announced in 2023, Eli Lilly and Sanofi now charge a maximum out-of-pocket price of $35 a month for the most widely prescribed form of insulin. Novo Nordisk has also implemented programs to reduce out-of-pocket costs for diabetes patients.
Before the implementation of U.S. price caps, however, American insulin prices far surpassed those in other countries. In a study comparing insulin prices in the U.S. with those in other countries, the RAND Corp. found that in October 2019 the average U.S. price per standard unit of the drug was $98.70, compared with $7.52 in the U.K., $9.08 in France and $12 in Canada.
In summary, it is true that Banting and his insulin co-discoverers sold their patent for the drug to the University of Toronto for $1 in a sale that was finalized in 1923. However, there is no evidence that Banting ever said “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world,” despite the widespread appearance of the quote on social media and elsewhere. Additionally, although the 1923 sale of the insulin patent significantly sped up the availability of the drug worldwide, it did not directly result in universally affordable insulin prices.
Sources
Assignment to the Governors of the University of Toronto. Collections U of T. collections.library.utoronto.ca, https://collections.library.utoronto.ca/view/insulin:Q10013. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Bliss, Michael. Banting: A Biography. University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Diem, P., et al. “The Discovery of Insulin.” Diabetes Epidemiology and Management, vol. 5, Jan. 2022, p. 100049. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.deman.2021.100049.
“Drugmaker Eli Lilly Caps the Cost of Insulin at $35 a Month, Bringing Relief for Millions.” NBC News, 1 Mar. 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/eli-lilly-caps-cost-insulin-35-month-rcna72713.
Friedman, Lester D., and Therese Jones. Routledge Handbook of Health and Media. Taylor & Francis, 2022.
Inflation Calculator. https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar’s Value From 1913-2024. 12 June 2024, https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.
Levine, I. E. (Israel E. ). The Discoverer of Insulin: Dr. Frederick Banting. New York, J. Messner, 1959. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/discovererofinsu00levi.
Lewis, Gary F., and Patricia L. Brubaker. “The Discovery of Insulin Revisited: Lessons for the Modern Era.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, vol. 131, no. 1, p. e142239. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI142239. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Luhby, Tami. “More Americans Can Now Get Insulin for $35 | CNN Politics.” CNN, 1 Jan. 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/01/politics/insulin-price-cap/index.html.
—. “Novo Nordisk Becomes Latest to Announce It Is Cutting Insulin Prices by up to 75%.” CNN, 14 Mar. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/health/novo-nordisk-insulin-prices/index.html.
Mulcahy, Andrew W., et al. Comparing Insulin Prices in the United States to Other Countries: Results from a Price Index Analysis. RAND Corporation, 6 Oct. 2020. www.rand.org, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA788-1.html.
“The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1923.” NobelPrize.Org, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1923/banting/facts/. Accessed 13 June 2024.
A new study by Pew Research reveals that X, formerly known as Twitter, has the most dedicated following of news-seekers among social media platforms.
While most U.S. users on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok do not primarily use these sites for news, X users cite staying informed as a significant reason for their engagement. Approximately half of X’s users report regularly obtaining news from the platform.
According to Pew, Facebook remains the leading social media news source for Americans, with 30% of adults regularly getting news there, compared to Instagram (16%), TikTok (14%), and X (12%).
However, 50% of X users regularly get news on the app, surpassing TikTok (40%), Facebook (37%), and Instagram (30%) in this regard. X also stands out, with 65% of its users naming news as a primary reason for using the platform, compared to 15% of TikTok users, 7% of Facebook users, and 8% of Instagram users.
Following its legacy of real-time news updates, 75% of X users report seeing breaking news in real time, compared to 58% on Facebook, 55% on TikTok, and 44% on Instagram.
The sources of news on these platforms vary significantly. On Instagram and Facebook, “friends and family” are the primary sources of news, whereas on X, this is the least common source. Instead, X users primarily see news from influencers or celebrities (49%), advocacy or nonprofit organizations (46%), other people they don’t know personally (75%), and news outlets and journalists (80%).
Another aspect of Pew’s findings is that X, while having a dedicated base of news-seekers, also has the highest incidence of inaccurate reporting. Among the platforms studied, 86% of X users reported encountering inaccurate news, with 37% saying they see it frequently.
As Meta reduces its news output on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, X under Elon Musk remains a key player in news dissemination.
Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.
Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers who are either a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) or have been verified as credible by MBFC. Further, we review each fact check for accuracy before publishing. We fact-check the fact-checkers and let you know their bias. When appropriate, we explain the rating and/or offer our own rating if we disagree with the fact-checker. (D. Van Zandt)
Claim Codes: Red= Fact Check on a Right Claim, Blue = Fact Check on a Left Claim, Black = Not Political/Conspiracy/Pseudoscience/Other
Fact Checker bias rating Codes: Red = Right-Leaning, Green = Least Biased, Blue = Left-Leaning, Black = Unrated by MBFC
Disclaimer: We are providing links to fact-checks by third-party fact-checkers. If you do not agree with a fact check, please directly contact the source of that fact check.
Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.
A photograph authentically shows human acrobats creating a towering structure with their bodies to represent the Olympic torch during the 1980 opening ceremonies of the games in Moscow.
Rating:
A viral photograph purportedly shows a real formation of humans replicating the Olympic torch during the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, in what was then the Soviet Union. The photograph shows an impressive feat in which dozens of acrobats stood on top of each other (relying on mounted platforms) to create a human tower in the likeness of the torch.
The photograph has been viral on Reddit over several years.
The above image is real and accurately depicts the opening ceremony celebration of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.
We found a copy of the photograph on Getty Images with the caption: “19 JULY – 03 AUG 1980: Opening ceremony celebration shows a formation of people replicating the Olympic torch during the Olympic Games in Moscow, Soviet Union.”
(Rich Clarkson/Getty Images)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty published a black and white photograph of the rehearsals involved in the creating such towers, seen here.
Many clips of the Moscow opening ceremony are available on YouTube from unverified sources, but they correspond with authenticated media photographs of the event. Based on this old recording of the ceremony, there were numerous so-called “human towers” in the grand arena of the Lenin Stadium. Wide shots followed by a close up of one such tower can be seen after the 1:27:49 mark:
In 1980, the U.S. Olympic Committee had voted to boycott the games after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. More than 60 other nations joined them in the boycott.
Sources
“Moscow 1980 Opening Ceremony – ЦЕРЕМОНИЯ ОТКРЫТИЯ МОСКВА 1980 ОЛИМПИАДЫ.” Krisna Agung Murti, 2020. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5CWzfW7ank. Accessed 13 June 2024.
“Olympic Bans and Boycotts Go Back a Century.” AP News, 3 Feb. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-winter-olympics-politics-sports-protests-and-demonstrations-8808adcab94bcc3eedc1fdd2fd8441a0. Accessed 13 June 2024.
“Political Games: The 1980 Moscow Olympics.” RFE/RL, 15 July 2020, https://www.rferl.org/a/political-games-the-1980-moscow-olympics/30726019.html. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Neither U.S. President Joe Biden nor former President Donald Trump, both of whom are running for a second shot at the presidency in the November 2024 election, served in the military, a circumstance some voters see as a shortcoming, others not. In any case, the U.S. Constitution does not require it.
Both Trump and Biden came of age during the Vietnam War era, when males 18 and older were eligible to be drafted into military service, but both obtained multiple draft deferments that kept them out of the war. As we have reported elsewhere, Biden received five student deferments because he was attending college, and was ultimately disqualified from military service except in a time of war or national emergency for medical reasons (he suffered from asthma).
Similarly, Trump received four student deferments, then was disqualified from serving except in a time of war or national emergency after a medical examination found he had bone spurs in both heels. We confirmed Trump’s deferment history via Selective Service records obtained from the U.S. National Archives by The Smoking Gun in 2011.
1964: Donald Trump became eligible for the draft on his 18th birthday (June 14, 1964) and registered with the Selective Service System 10 days later. He received the first of his four 2-S (college) deferments on July 28 of that year.
1965: Trump received his second college deferment on Dec. 14, 1965.
1966: Trump’s 1965 student deferment expired and he was reclassified 1-A (available for military service) on Nov. 22, 1966. However, his 2-S deferment was renewed the following month.
1967: No record found.
1968: Trump obtained his fourth and final college deferment on Jan. 16, 1968. After graduating from Wharton the following July, he was once again reclassified 1-A. Trump underwent an armed forces physical examination with a result of “DISQ” (disqualified) on Sept. 19. On that basis, he was reclassified 1-Y (qualified for service only in time of war or national emergency) on Oct. 15.
According to a statement from Trump’s 2016 campaign, the disqualification stemmed from his having bone spurs in both heels:
While attending the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School of Finance, Mr. Trump received a minor medical deferment for bone spurs on both heels of his feet. The medical deferment was expected to be short-term and he was therefore entered in the military draft lottery, where he received an extremely high number, 356 out of 365.
However, the precise details of that 1968 medical exemption remain unclear and controversial, and most draft-related government medical records from the Vietnam War era were not preserved.
1972: Despite the supposedly “short-term” nature of Trump’s disqualifying physical condition, on Feb. 17, 1972, he was reclassified 4-F (not qualified for military service), presumably due to the fact that the 1-Y classification had been abolished the previous year.
The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), a prominent disinformation research group at Stanford University focusing on social media abuse, is undergoing significant leadership changes and faces an uncertain future. This comes amid a sustained right-wing campaign targeting the study of online misinformation.
Alex Stamos, SIO’s founding director, left his position in November. Recently, the university did not renew the contracts of Renée DiResta, the research manager, along with several other staff members. The remaining employees have been advised to seek other employment opportunities, as reported by Platformer.
SIO was established five years ago to tackle pressing internet-related issues, including child exploitation on social media and the spread of misinformation about elections and vaccines. However, in the past year, SIO and similar institutions have faced increasing scrutiny from Republicans, who claim that these researchers are engaging in censorship.
The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a collaborative effort between SIO and the University of Washington to monitor misinformation during the 2020 and 2022 elections, has been accused by conspiracy theorists of being a government front to suppress free speech. Consequently, SIO has faced numerous lawsuits, subpoenas, and online harassment, resulting in significant legal fees and distractions from their research efforts. The EIP recently announced it would not participate in future elections.
In response to these challenges, Stanford University asserted that SIO’s essential work would continue under new leadership. The university highlighted SIO’s ongoing projects, including research on child safety, the Journal of Online Trust and Safety, and the Trust and Safety Research Conference. University spokesperson Dee Mostofi emphasized Stanford’s commitment to protecting academic freedom despite external pressures.
SIO staff, including Stamos and DiResta, have been targeted by congressional inquiries led by Rep. Jim Jordan. Jordan accuses them of colluding to suppress conservative speech, a claim they deny. Stamos and DiResta also face a lawsuit from America First Legal, an organization led by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
Previously, SIO was named in a lawsuit by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana against the Biden administration, alleging collusion to curb free speech. Although SIO has since been dropped from this case, the Supreme Court’s impending ruling on the matter could have significant implications.
In a statement, Stamos and DiResta defended their work and criticized the politically motivated attacks against their research. They expressed gratitude for Stanford’s support and confidence in the judicial system to protect academic freedom. They also hoped Stanford would continue supporting SIO’s remaining staff and future research initiatives.
Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.
Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers that are either a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) or have been verified as credible by MBFC. Further, we review each fact check for accuracy before publishing. We fact-check the fact-checkers and let you know their bias. When appropriate, we explain the rating and/or offer our own rating if we disagree with the fact-checker. (D. Van Zandt)
Claim Codes: Red= Fact Check on a Right Claim, Blue = Fact Check on a Left Claim, Black = Not Political/Conspiracy/Pseudoscience/Other
Fact Checker bias rating Codes: Red = Right-Leaning, Green = Least Biased, Blue = Left-Leaning, Black = Unrated by MBFC
FALSE
Claim by Donald Trump (R): Trump tells Logan Paul 107,000 people attended New Jersey rally.
Newsweek rating: False (Based on crowd modeling, the size of the rally site, footage from the event, and accounts from other reporters, Trump’s claim that 107,000 people attended his Wildwood Rally does not appear to be supported by evidence.)
Claim via Social Media: New Jersey suspended Trump’s liquor license after criminal conviction.
USA Today rating: False (This hasn’t happened. The New Jersey Attorney General’s office is reviewing the impact of Trump’s conviction on liquor licenses at Trump Golf locations in the state, but the review was ongoing as of June 15, a spokesperson said.)
Claim via Social Media: “Trump can’t be on the Texas ballot because of our state constitution.”
PolitiFact rating: False (The U.S. Constitution, not any state’s constitution, sets the qualifications to run for president. They are limited to natural-born citizenship, age (35 by Inauguration Day) and residency in the United States (14 years).
Disclaimer: We are providing links to fact-checks by third-party fact-checkers. If you do not agree with a fact check, please directly contact the source of that fact check.
Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.
A viral image authentically shows a Demodex mite that lives on human faces.
Rating:
Context
While the scanning electron micrograph is genuine and unaltered, it shows the head of a silkworm moth caterpillar and not a Demodex mite, as posts on social media misleadingly claimed.
In June 2024, posts in multiple Facebook groups claimed to show an image of a microscopic creature identified as a Demodex mite, a tiny arthropod that lives, mates, and lays eggs on human facial skin.
The wording of the nearly identical posts first appeared in a post made in a Neil deGrasse Tyson fan group on May 30, 2023. As of this writing, that original post had received around 1,500 comments and around 2,900 shares. The image accompanied by the same caption has also appeared on other social media sites including X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
(X user @fopminui)
But the viral posts were incorrect. Reverse-image searches on TinEye and Google Images led us to the stock image agency Alamy, which licenses the original image and identifies it as a colored scanning electron micrograph of the head of a silkworm moth caterpillar.
To verify this identification, Snopes reached out to entomologists Kyle Koch, an educator and diagnostician at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and Lynn Kimsey, an emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis. Both Koch and Kimsey confirmed via email that the creature in the image is a caterpillar and not a Demodex mite.
For these reasons, we have rated the claim as “Miscaptioned,” meaning that it is a genuine, unaltered image that has been accompanied by a misleading caption.
Although the viral image does not depict one, the Demodex genus of mites are very real. Two species in the genus, Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevis, do live on human faces and are collectively referred to as facial mites. According to a paper published in the scientific journal Dermatology Reports in 2022, mites of both species are common human parasites that, according to some studies, have been found on the skin of up to 100% of adults and 70% of children.
To the untrained eye, the lumpy bodies and stubby legs of Demodex mites, which are arthropods, and silkworm moth caterpillars, which are insects, share some similarities. The most glaring difference between the animals is their size: while adult Demodex mites reach a maximum length of around 0.4 millimeters, silkworm moth caterpillars measure around 2 millimeters just after hatching and grow to a maximum length of around 75 millimeters before they build cocoons and begin the process of pupation into an adult silkworm moth, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
This difference in scale, however, is not immediately obvious when dealing with a close-up image like the one in question.
For entomologists like Koch, other features of the specimen that appears in the viral image make it easy to determine that the animal is not a mite from the Demodex genus even when size cannot be taken into account.
One feature that stood out to Koch was the morphology of the specimen’s mouth, which he explained does not resemble the needle-like chelicerae or beak-like rostrum found across the many Demodex species. Another clue was the hairlike bristles visible all over the creature in the viral images. Known to entomologists as setae, these bristles are never found on Demodex mites, which are instead covered in tiny, semi-transparent scales.
A real Demodex mite can be seen crawling up a human eyelash in the video below, which the biotechnology company BioTissue posted to YouTube in 2014.
Information from reverse-image searches shows that the image from the viral posts has circulated on social media sites since at least 2014, when a Reddit user posted it to the r/WTF subreddit. Notably, this 2014 post correctly identified the creature as a silkworm.
The Demodex misidentification appears to have emerged in June 2018, when X user @AntonioParis posted the image with a caption reading, “An alien from another world? This is a microscopic image of Demodex. These mites live on your face.” Similar posts sharing the misidentified image soon appeared in posts on Reddit, Facebook, and other social media sites, and have periodicallycirculated ever since.
Lewis Carroll said, “Why is it that people with the most narrow of minds seem to have the widest of mouths?”
Rating:
In a post dated May 26, 2024, the Facebook account Philosophical Rhythms shared an image featuring a quote attributed to Lewis Carroll, the author best known for the 1865 book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” The quote allegedly written by Carroll read:
Why is it that people with the narrowest of minds seem to have the widest of mouths?
The post had received more than 3,600 shares and 6,900 reactions at the time of this writing, and the image featuring the quote had popped up in posts on other social media sites, including X.
(Facebook user Philosophical Rhythms)
However, the quote does not appear in any of Carroll’s published works, and we have rated this claim “Misattributed.”
The earliest online appearance of the exact quote from the Facebook post appears to have been a Feb. 28, 2011, post on X by the quote-sharing account @TweetyQuote, which did not attribute the saying to any author.
(X user @TweetyQuote)
The first securely dated attribution of the quote to Carroll emerged around two years later, in a 2013 X post.
Since 2013, the quote including the Carroll attribution has appeared on a number of popular quotation meme websites, such as AZquotes, Minimalist Quotes and Quotefancy, as well as in posts on social media outlets like Instagram and Reddit.
A search on the Google Books database found no instances of the exact quote in any published book, whether by Carroll or another author.
A number of very similar quotes have circulated in print since the mid-20th century. Searches for the phrase “a narrow mind and a wide mouth” using Google Books and the Internet Archive’s full-text search feature turned up dozens of instances of slight variations on the quote in magazines, joke books and quote anthologies. In all of these examples, the quote is either unattributed or attributed to “Anonymous.”
A possible clue to the origin of the adage appeared in a 1958 issue of The International Mailer, a magazine formerly published by the International Mailer’s Union. For the issue’s “Thought for the Month,” the editors chose the following unattributed quote:
A narrow mind and a wide mouth go together; narrow souled people are like narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.
Although the first section of the quote, “A narrow mind and a wide mouth go together,” cannot be attributed to any individual author, the rest is a paraphrase of a quote by the English poet Alexander Pope.
The original version of Pope’s witticism was included in his “Thoughts on Various Subjects,” which was originally published in 1727. Pope’s wording reads as follows:
It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.
Ultimately, there is no evidence linking any variation of these quotes about narrow minds to Carroll, despite the many social media posts incorrectly crediting the “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” author.
We’ve fact-checked other quotes attributed to famous figures, including whether Abraham Lincoln said, “It’s not the years in your life that count; it’s the life in your years.”
Sources
Izzo, Jack. “Lincoln Said, ‘It’s Not the Years in Your Life That Count; It’s the Life in Your Years’?” Snopes, 4 June 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/abraham-lincoln-life-in-your-years-quote/.
Now That Makes Sense! : Relating to People with Wit and Wisdom. Kirkland, WA : Wise Owl Books, 1993. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/nowthatmakessens0000unse.
Phillips, Bob. The Fun Joke Book. Irvine, Calif. : Harvest House Publishers, 1977. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/funjokebook00phil.
Pope, Alexander, and William Roscoe. The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq. with Notes and Illustrations by Himself and Others, to Which Are Added, a New Life of the Author, an Estimate of His Poetical Character and Writings, and Occasional Remarks. J. Rivington, 1824.
Vroman, Mary Elizabeth. “… and have Not Charity.” Ladies’ Home Journal, Sep. 1951, pp. 205–211. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/ladieshomejourna68julwyet.
Welcome to our weekly media literacy quiz. This quiz will test your knowledge of the past week’s events with a focus on facts, misinformation, bias, and general media literacy. Please share and compare your results.
Media Literacy = the ability to critically analyze stories presented in the mass media and to determine their accuracy or credibility.
Media Literacy Quiz for Week of Jun 15
Test your knowledge with 7 questions about current events, media bias, fact checks, and misinformation. You have 30 seconds per question!
Rules: No Googling! Use reasoning and logic if you don't know.
Your answer:
Correct answer:
You got {{SCORE_CORRECT}} out of {{SCORE_TOTAL}}
Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.
Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers that are either a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) or have been verified as credible by MBFC. Further, we review each fact check for accuracy before publishing. We fact-check the fact-checkers and let you know their bias. When appropriate, we explain the rating and/or offer our own rating if we disagree with the fact-checker. (D. Van Zandt)
Claim Codes: Red= Fact Check on a Right Claim, Blue = Fact Check on a Left Claim, Black = Not Political/Conspiracy/Pseudoscience/Other
Fact Checker bias rating Codes: Red = Right-Leaning, Green = Least Biased, Blue = Left-Leaning, Black = Unrated by MBFC
Disclaimer: We are providing links to fact-checks by third-party fact-checkers. If you do not agree with a fact check, please directly contact the source of that fact check.
Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.
In a video appearing in social media posts, helicopters hover over a sandy beach and vibrant turquoise water, people in swimsuits gawk at aircraft soaring overhead and the sky is a clear, bright blue.
“Breaking,” text over the video says. “US Navy deploys in Miami due to Russian warships 6/12.”
Multiple Instagramposts sharing the video were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
(Screenshot from Instagram)
In reality, a flotilla of Russian warships reached Cuba on June 12, “in an apparent show of force by President Vladimir Putin flexing his missiles in the Western Hemisphere,” The Washington Post reported. The United States and Canada have since made their presence known in the Caribbean. A fast-attack submarine has docked at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, and a Canadian navy patrol ship arrived in Havana on June 14.
But this video doesn’t show the U.S. dispatching multiple Navy aircraft in response to the warships.
It’s footage of the Hyundai Air & Sea Show that happened several weeks earlier over Memorial Day weekend in Miami, a spokesperson for the show told PolitiFact.
President Joe Biden’s age has long been the subject of conservative attacks, even more so now that at age 81, he’s seeking a second term.
According to claims using edited or out-of-context videos, Biden once left in the middle of a news interview (False), “turned around and shook hands with thin air” (False), and sat in an imaginary chair at a D-Day event (he didn’t).
A new video emerged at the Group of Seven Summit in Italy that people claimed showed Biden “wandering off” during a June 13 skydiving demonstration.
Conservative media outlets and others on social media seized on a shortened video clip from the event that appeared to show Biden slowly walking away from the other world leaders before being pulled back by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for a group photo.
“WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?” RNC Research, an X account managed by former President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, asked in a June 13 post sharing the video.
The RNC video had nearly 3 million views as of June 14 and soon began to spread across social media with conservative media outlets and influencersciting RNC’s video and adding claims that Biden had wandered off.
A Daily Mail TikTok video’s caption said Biden “strangely wandered away” and had to be “guided” back to the group.
The “Jesse Watters Primetime” Instagram account shared the video and wrote, “Biden wandered off into an Italian field at the G7 summit.”
The New York Post took it a step further, altering the video’s frame to make it more narrow, cutting out a skydiver seen in the RNC video.
“President Biden appeared to wander off at the G7 summit in Italy, with officials needing to pull him back to focus,” the New York post wrote in an X post, linking to an article that credited RNC Research’s video. The claim also made the Post’s print edition front page, with a headline calling Biden the “Meander in Chief.”
But a longer video of the event, shared on YouTube by the G7 Italy account, tells a different story. At various points in the G7 video, you can see parachutists off to the right of the frame, to Biden’s left.
In the video below, parachutists to Biden’s left can be seen on the grass as another lands with a G7 Summit flag, shortly before Biden turns to speak with them.
Cable news network MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” broadcast showed video from a different angle, where you can clearly see several parachutists behind Biden’ to his left. He turns and speaks to them and gives a thumbs up sign, before Meloni came over to get his attention for the group photo.
The New York Post’s X post was tagged with a community note that said, “The video has been cropped.” We reached out to the New York Post and its editor, Keith Poole, for comment, but didn’t immediately hear back.
RNC spokesperson Anna Kelly didn’t speak to the intent of the video the group shared on X, but emailed links to posts, including an Italian news outlet’s coverage of Biden’s visit that described his voice as “weak.” Another link Kelly shared is a Trump War Room post that featured the misleading cover of the New York Post.
“He went to go and talk to the pilot, one of the parachute jumpers. He went to go and shake all their hands,” an archived version of The Telegraph story said. The article has since been updated to remove Sunak’s quotes.
Andrew Bates, White House senior deputy press secretary, confirmed that Biden was giving a thumbs up to skydivers and thanking veterans. He pointed out conservatives such as Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican member of Congress from Illinois, and the conservative outlet The Washington Examiner called out the misleading claims.
Our ruling
Social media posts, including from The New York Post, The Daily Mail and “Jesse Watters Primetime,” claimed that video showed Biden wandering away from other world leaders at the G7 Summit in Italy at an event in which skydivers landed carrying flags of each country in attendance.
But longer video and video from other angles clearly shows Biden was speaking to skydivers on the ground before the Italian prime minister tapped him for a group photo. The New York Post edited a video from RNC Research to cut one skydiver out of the frame. The claim is False.
“Joe Biden is not real,” reads the text in a recent Instagram video.
The evidence that the commander-in-chief is an impostor? A screenshot from Ancestry.com “showing he actually died in 2018 in Guantanamo, Cuba.”
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
As Snopes reported, such a page did appear on Ancestry.com but appears to have since been deleted. But the page was archivedMay 28 and June 12. It says Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. — the president’s full name — and includes other factual details about his life such as his birth place (Scranton, Pennsylvania) and birth date (Nov. 20, 1948).
But it also says he died in 2018 in Guantánamo, Cuba, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
U.S. Army records show there’s no grave for Biden at the cemetery, and a cemetery spokesperson confirmed to Snopes that Biden is “not laid to rest” there.
Anyone can upload information to Ancestry, according to the site’s submission agreement page.
“The decision to upload personal information to the Ancestry website is your responsibility,” the page says. “All information that you post will be displayed and is available for others to search, view or hear.”
The site also reserves the right to “remove any user provided content which comes to our attention and which we believe, in our sole discretion, is illegal, obscene, indecent, defamatory, incites racial or ethnic hatred, violates the rights of others or otherwise violates this agreement.”
We’ve previously fact-checked and rated Pants on Fire claims that Biden is in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp and that the current president is a Biden impostor. Such developments would draw intense, global news coverage but there are none.
As of June 13, Biden was in Italy, participating in public events with world leaders and holding a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy.
Biden didn’t die in Guantánamo in 2018, and a since-deleted Ancestry page doesn’t prove otherwise. We rate this post Pants on Fire!
(SR Publications)
(University of Toronto Libraries)
(X user @fopminui)
(Facebook user Philosophical Rhythms)
(X user @TweetyQuote)
