Tag: Facebook Fact-checks

PolitiFact – Did Pete Buttigieg say Joe Biden is unfit to serve? No, this video is miscaptioned

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A viral video on Facebook showed a heated exchange between U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat.

In a 2022 hearing, Nehls cited some of President Joe Biden’s gaffes, relating it to Buttigieg’s criticism of former President Donald Trump’s state of mind. The clip included this exchange:

Nehls: “Have you spoken with any other Cabinet members about implementing the 25th amendment on President Biden?”

Buttigieg: “First of all, I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle. And —”

Nehls: “Answer the question.”

Buttigieg: “I will look beyond the insulting nature of that question and make clear to you that the president of the United States —”

Nehls: “Have you spoken to any —”

Buttigieg: “Of course not.”

The 25th Amendment allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet, or another body as determined by Congress, to declare a president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

But a Facebook post misinterpreted what Buttigieg said: “SAVAGE: Troy Nehls FORCES Pete Buttigieg to admit that Biden is unfit to serve,” the Nov. 17 post’s caption says.

Screenshot from Facebook

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.)

The four-minute video does not show Buttigieg admitting Biden is unfit to serve.

The video was clipped from a July 2022 hearing. The exchange happened around the three-hour mark, when Nehls started asking Buttigieg about Biden’s capacity to serve as president.

After Buttigieg said he has not spoken to any other Cabinet members about invoking the 25th Amendment, he added, “The (president) of the United States is as vigorous a colleague or boss as I have ever had the pleasure of working with.”

Nehls’ time for inquiry expired after that exchange.

Later in the Facebook video, a man provided commentary and said, “So, Congressman Troy Nehls absolutely corners Pete Buttigieg here, practically forcing him to admit, or at least see very clearly, undeniably, that Biden is unfit for office mentally and in many other ways.”

But the video doesn’t show Buttigieg making such a declaration. We rate that claim False.

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November 21, 2023
PolitiFact – This video from George Floyd’s death isn’t new, as Megyn Kelly said in a Facebook post
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A Facebook post from Megyn Kelly’s SiriusXM podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show” promises to show viewers “new police bodycam footage” of George Floyd’s arrest “that changes the narrative completely.”

But the footage Kelly shows in the video has been public since August 2020, and a transcript of the audio was published a month before then.

Kelly did not respond to our request for comment.

The Facebook 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.)

Floyd was killed in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, after police officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder in the case.

A new movie, “The Fall of Minneapolis,” claims to uncover “what really happened” on the day of Floyd’s death.

On her Nov. 15 show, Kelly interviewed the film’s producer Liz Collin and director JC Chaix. An eight-minute clip of Kelly’s hourlong interview with Collin and Chaix starts with Collin’s retelling of the events leading up to Floyd’s death. Collin said she wanted people to see body camera footage before Floyd’s death which shows Floyd’s interaction with officers Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng.

The clip showed Lane approaching the car Floyd was in, tapping the window with a baton and asking to see both of Floyd’s hands.

Floyd seemed startled repeatedly saying, “I’m sorry,” as he opened the car door.

Within seconds, Lane drew his gun and pointed it at Floyd.

There are cuts throughout the video Kelly showed. After one cut, Lane asked Floyd multiple times to step away from the vehicle while Floyd pleaded with him, “Please don’t shoot me.” After another cut, Lane forcibly pulled Floyd from the car.

Body camera footage has been public for three years

On Facebook, Kelly characterized the footage as “new.” However, the footage she showed from Lane’s body camera has been publicly available for more than three years. Collin herself makes that clear in the interview.

“And that’s what people should question. Why this information has been kept from them for so long,” Collin said. “Nearly two and a half months before the body camera footage came out.”

In the days following Floyd’s May 25 death, video from bystanders’ cellphones and footage from nearby building’s security cameras helped piece together the events that led up to the incident. Some of the security video showed Lane and Keung’s interaction with Floyd.

The Minneapolis Park Police Department released redacted police body camera footage on May 27, 2020. However, it took months for the Minneapolis Police Department to release officers’ body camera footage, citing the ongoing investigation.

Here’s a timeline of when Lane’s body camera footage became public:
- July 8, 2020: A transcript of Lane’s body camera footage becomes public after his lawyer filed a motion to dismiss charges.
- July 13, 2020: A coalition of news organizations request public access to body camera footage.
- July 15, 2020: Media outlets and members of the public are allowed to view body camera footage by appointment only. The footage cannot be copied or recorded.
- Aug. 3, 2020: The Daily Mail releases a leaked recording of body camera footage. The video Kelly showed Nov. 15 is included in this leak.
- Aug. 10, 2020: Body camera footage is released to the public.
Whether Lane’s body camera video “changes the narrative completely,” as Kelly claims, is an opinion. However, in March 2021, jurors in Chuavin’s case saw the body camera footage that Kelly says is “new.” The jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder.

Lane pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter in May 2022, and Keung pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in December 2022. Neither officer had a trial.

Our ruling

In a Facebook post, Kelly said, “New police bodycam footage” of George Floyd’s arrest “changes the narrative.”

But the body camera footage Kelly showed has been publicly available since August 2020 and was shown during Chauvin’s trial in March 2021, which eventually led to his conviction.

We rate the claim False.
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November 21, 2023
PolitiFact – Video shows Israeli flag planted over boys’ school, not al-Shifa hospital

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Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest hospital and a major shelter for Palestinian civilians, became a focal point in the Israel-Hamas war after Israel Defense Forces raided the hospital Nov. 15. The Israeli military says Hamas, an armed Palestinian militant group, used the hospital as cover for terror infrastructure; officials from Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry and hospital officials have denied that Hamas uses civilian centers for its operations.

Apart from that discussion is a different video traveling in several Instagram posts showing a service member carrying an Israeli flag and hoisting it on top of a building. The posts claim this was taken at al-Shifa hospital.

“🇮🇱 Raising their flag over Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza – after attacking a hospital full of premature babies, sick/injured children and civilians. What accomplishment,” one post said.

Screenshot from Instagram

The posts 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.)

A closer look at the video shows that the captions misrepresent where it was taken.

The video shows a logo that matches the name of a Telegram channel, which posted the video Nov. 14. The video’s caption in Hebrew, translated to English on the app, said, “Givati fighters wave the Israeli flag 🇮🇱 and the brigade💜 in the center of Gaza City 🫡.” It did not mention al-Shifa hospital.

Arthur Carpentier, a journalist at Le Monde, a French newspaper, found where the video was shot by using satellite imagery and mapping matching features. He said the video was taken not from al-Shifa hospital, but from the Gaza Preliminary School for Boys, less than a mile away. OpenStreetMap shows that the coordinates correspond to the school, similarly reported by Reuters.

We verified the video shoot location by similarly using satellite imagery. We identified features in the video that corresponded with the satellite image, such as lettering on the building and structures nearby. The colors of the boxes below show how they match up.

Looking closely at the start of the video, the service members walk over letters on the ground that say “UN.” The blue box shows the letters “UN” on the satellite image versus the video. As Carpentier said, the satellite image was captured in May 2022, which could account for the orientation difference of the letters “UN.” Meanwhile, the yellow box shows the tree in the video.

Image from Google Earth, screenshots from Telegram video

The pink box shows the same shape of the rooftop, which can be seen as the service members turn a corner. The orange box shows what looks like a fenced path below the building.

Image from Google Earth, screenshots from Telegram video

Because the building had the letters “UN” painted on its rooftop, we asked the United Nations about this video’s claim. Juliette Touma, communications director for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said the video shows “an UNRWA school in northern Gaza.” The agency runs 183 schools across the Gaza Strip.

Touma told Reuters that as of Nov. 17, the agency has been unable to communicate with the Gaza team and thus cannot verify which school is in the video.

The New York Times reported Nov. 19, citing a U.N. official, that a strike has hit another U.N.-run school in Gaza, killing dozens.

We rate the claim that this video shows service members planting a flag over al-Shifa hospital False.

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November 21, 2023
PolitiFact – The U.S. government isn’t giving Americans $2,000 monthly checks

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A Facebook video shows the perspective of a man trying to help a person sleeping in a tent at a Walmart. The helper takes the person to a hotel and, soon after, presents him with a check from a new program that provides monthly financial help.

“The government is paying you $2,000 every single month,” the man says in the post shared from Nov. 15. “It’s a new program, any American who needs $2,000 a month can get it now.”

The Facebook 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.)

PolitiFact has fact-checked similar claims that promised stimulus checks and stimulus loans. So we did some digging to find out whether the program the video describes exists.

A close-up of the footage of the $2,000 check shows an Internal Revenue Service logo and some text: “Under the New Deal Program, the current Administration has issued you incentives for the following total amount. Total Health Allowance Incentive: $2000 Monthly Credits.”

There are several reasons to doubt the video’s accuracy.

“One huge red flag to watch out for is that checks that go out to the taxpayers never show the IRS as the payer,” IRS spokesperson Octavio O. Saenz told PolitiFact. “All checks generated due to tax credits/refunds show the U.S. Treasury Department as the payer.”

The Facebook post provides a link to a Health Insurance Marketplace subsidy calculator run by Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. It helps people estimate whether they are eligible for tax credits to offset the cost of health insurance.

The Facebook post mentioned a “health allowance incentive,” but there is no record of Congress and the Biden administration creating such a program.

A “premium tax credit” to help people who are at or below the federal poverty line purchase insurance in the federal health marketplace, but this has been available since 2014. To receive this credit, people must be U.S. citizens or lawfully present in the U.S. They also cannot have other types of health insurance such as Medicare or Medicaid.

The amount of the premium tax credit varies based on the person’s income, and it’s supposed to be used to pay for health insurance in advance (by the government sending the money to the insurance company directly). The credit can also be received at the end of the year when a beneficiary files taxes, but that means that beneficiary has already paid the monthly cost of the insurance during the year, according to an IRS fact sheet.

We rate the claim that a new government program will pay Americans $2,000 a month False.

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November 20, 2023
PolitiFact – Princess Diana died in 1997. A conspiracy theory that loops in former President Donald Trump claims

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Princess Diana died in August 1997 after sustaining injuries in a Paris car crash. But a recent video shared in an Instagram post suggests she’s alive, and in cahoots with former President Donald Trump.

“I think Diana is still alive, she possibly could be with Trump, I don’t know,” a woman in the video says. “She talks in code just like Trump.”

The woman also goes on to point to a Telegram channel “as a little confirmation that I’m onto something” because it’s allegedly run by John F. Kennedy Jr.’s wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. (Both Kennedy and Bessette-Kennedy died in a July 1999 plane crash.)

It also features clips from old interviews Diana gave, such as one in which she said that she “did a lot of work, well, underground, without any media attention.”

“Royal Secret = Diana is alive,” reads text over the video. “Psyops and secrets are sometimes necessary to keep people alive and keep the plan of saving humanity successful.”

But none of this amounts to credible evidence that a former British royal who has been dead for more than 25 years has been alive and incognito and in touch with Trump.

A Facebook post sharing the video 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.)

Diana’s funeral was watched by about 2.5 billion television viewers around the world, and a conspiracy theory in which she remains alive would involve the complicity of her family and the criminal justice system. A jury eventually found that she was killed by the negligent driving of her chauffeur and the paparazzi pursuing the car she was in.

This claim is unfounded and there’s no evidence to support it. We rate it Pants on Fire!

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November 17, 2023
PolitiFact – More fake ‘Quantum AI’ claims about Elon Musk spread online

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A video starring Elon Musk giving an onstage interview in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is being misrepresented on social media.

“Elon Musk and the Dubai billionaire have unveiled new software called ‘Quantum AI,’” a narrator says in the video that shows the Tesla CEO’s and another man speaking on a stage before an audience. “They have already invested more than $54 billion in this project.”

Text below the video says: “Elon Musk just revealed his secret in an interview, sending banks into panic and thousands of people flocking to ATMs.”

And a Nov. 15 Facebook post sharing the video adds to the confusion: “Allegations against Tesla confirmed! The news this morning shocked everyone!”

But it’s all nonsense, and 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.)

The post’s video is from 2017 and has nothing to do with software called Quantum AI. It shows Musk talking to Mohammad Al Gergawi, minister of cabinet affairs for the United Arab Emirates, during a world government summit in Dubai. Musk talked about Tesla’s plan for the emirates.

We’ve fact-checked previous claims trying to link Musk to Quantum AI, a supposed cryptocurrency software, but have found no evidence that he’s connected.

We rate claims that Musk and a Dubai billionaire debuted “Quantum AI” — much less that this video shows that happening — False.

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November 17, 2023
PolitiFact – No, this video doesn’t show Israeli military killing people at Oct. 7 concert in Israel

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Editor’s note: This story contains references and links to graphic images and videos.

Social media users recently circulated video footage they claimed shows an Israeli helicopter killing Israelis at an Oct. 7 concert in Israel.

Stew Peters, a far-right radio host and the filmmaker behind the anti-COVID-19 vaccine films “Died Suddenly” and “Watch the Water,” shared the 14-second video clip on X, formerly Twitter.

“VIDEO PROVES and ISRAEL ADMITS it slaughtered its own people on Oct. 7th,” Peters wrote Nov. 9. “This attack was NOT made by goat herders on paragliders. Footage from Israeli helicopter shows the IDF killing many people at October 7 concert in Israel. IDF helicopters fired on civilians fleeing the PsyTrance Music Festival.”

Other social media users shared Peters’ post, and it 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.) We also found this video clip misrepresented on TikTok.

(Screenshot from X)

Peters misleads about what the clip shows. The Israel Defense Forces shared this clip Oct. 9 on X, saying it showed a series of Israeli attacks on Hamas fighters. Hamas fighters attacked concertgoers in Israel on Oct. 7, and more than 200 people were killed, according to Zaka, Israel’s rescue service.

Asked about his post, Peters referred PolitiFact to a series of news reports — some in Hebrew — that he said document “Israelis killing their own.” The information he sent did not include or appear to mention the video footage he shared on X.

Peters’ X post linked to an Oct. 30 article from a pro-Palestine media research organization that in turn linked to another Oct. 27 article from The Grayzone, a news organization historically on the political left. The Grayzone story included an embedded X post with the Israeli forces’ video footage, with a caption that said the footage showed Israeli forces “attacking Hamas fighters.”

We found no evidence to support Peters’ claim that the video clip showed Israeli forces killing people at an Oct. 7 concert in Israel. A group that works to geolocate video footage analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video and said it was not filmed at the music festival site.

Where did the video footage originate?

Hamas fighters attacked multiple locations in Israel on Oct. 7, including the Tribe of Nova music festival, where at least 260 people were killed, according to Zaka, Israel’s rescue service. Hamas’ attack at the music festival was documented by victims and journalists and confirmed by global heads of state, including the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.

On Oct. 9, the Israel Defense Forces first posted a video showing this overhead footage on X that, starting at the 2:06 timestamp, shows air strikes followed by clouds of smoke and dust rising; at one point, people are visible before the strike. According to Google’s built-in translation, the Hebrew-language caption read: “Throughout the last day, Air Force planes have been carrying out extensive attacks along the length and breadth of the Gaza Strip, wreaking havoc on Hamas terrorists. In just the last three hours, about 130 targets were attacked using dozens of planes. The focus of the attack: Beit Hanon, Sajaya, Al Furkan and Rimal >>”

An Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson provided a translation that largely matched Google’s.

We used reverse-image searches, but did not find the video shared online before the Israel Defense Forces’ Oct. 9 post.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson told PolitiFact the video Peters shared matched the video it posted on X and said that it shows Israeli soldiers striking Hamas militants.

(Screenshots from X)

GeoConfirmed, a group that works to geolocate video footage, analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video, and concluded it was not filmed at the site of the Nova music festival.

Our ruling

Peters claimed that video footage “shows the IDF killing many people at October 7 concert in Israel.”

The original video was posted Oct. 9 by Israel Defense Forces, which said it showed the Israeli air force striking Hamas militants following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.

We did not find the video being shared online before the Israel Defense Forces’ Oct. 9 post, and a group that works to geolocate video footage analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video and said it was not filmed at the music festival site.

We rate this claim False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

RELATED: Reports of 260 Israeli music fest deaths aren’t unsubstantiated. Photos, videos document toll

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November 17, 2023
PolitiFact – New York City billboard ad showing ‘Stand with Israel’ replacing Ukraine is fake

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Social media users recently shared a video of a digital advertisement in New York City they claim shows an Israeli ad urging the U.S. to support Israel instead of Ukraine.

The Nov. 14 Instagram video shows a digital billboard with an ad displaying the Ukrainian flag on one side and words that say “Stand with Ukraine” above a red heart on the other. The words “Stand with Israel” then appear on screen and push the words “Stand with Ukraine” down and out of the frame, and the flag changes to an Israeli flag.

Sticker text on the video read, “The Israeli PR machine has no tact.”

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 and Instagram.)

We found multiple posts across social media platforms sharing the video.

The digital billboard in the Instagram video shows it sits atop the Majestic Delicatessen, which is at 200 W. 50th St. on the corner of Seventh Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.

We found that location on the website of Clear Channel Outdoor, an outdoor advertising company that manages that digital billboard and others in or near Times Square.

But the pro-Israel ad never appeared on that billboard.

“The ad is a fake and has never run on our displays,” Clear Channel Outdoor spokesperson Jason King said.

In response to a Nov. 14 X post from a BBC Verify journalist, some social media users shared videos of the same digital billboard showing an advertisement for the movie “Trolls Band Together,” which opened Nov. 17 in theaters. In those videos and the altered Israel video, there is a traditional billboard ad for the “Trolls” movie that sits below the digital screen.

Social media posts have presented New York City’s digital billboards with altered content before. In September, PolitiFact found a billboard at West 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan was altered to say “Glory to Urine” instead of Ukraine during a visit to the city by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Likewise, the claim that a billboard in New York City shows a “Stand with Israel” billboard ad replacing a “Stand with Ukraine” ad is False.

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November 17, 2023
PolitiFact – Video doesn’t show President Joe Biden falling down plane stairs in Poland

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A video circulating social media is wrongly being characterized as showing President Joe Biden falling down a set of airplane stairs in Europe.

“US President Joe Biden fell on the plane stairs shortly after landing in Poland after visiting Ukraine and talking about having suffered a stroke,” read the text above a Nov. 15 Instagram post’s video.

The video shows someone apparently slipping and sliding down the stairs.

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.)

(Screenshot from Instagram)

This claim is an old one, first appearing online in February, when Biden visited Poland.

We don’t know who the person in the video is, but it’s not Biden. News footage of Biden arriving in Poland shows him descending the stairs without incident. He first appears at the 6:15 mark of this livestream posted on Facebook by ABC News.

A White House spokesperson told Newsweek in February that the person who fell wasn’t Biden.

We rate claims that this video shows Biden False.

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November 17, 2023
PolitiFact – Post alleging ‘business relationship’ between Stormy Daniels and Mike Johnson is satire

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Americans are learning a lot about Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., since his fellow Republicans named him speaker Oct. 25. But a viral rumor about Johnson and former adult film star Stormy Daniels is not credible.

“BREAKING FOX NEWS: Stormy Daniels admits to having a business relationship with Speaker Mike Johnson,” said the Nov. 11 X post that got more than 1 million views and included side-by-side headshots of Johnson and Daniels.

Screenshots of the post quickly spread across Facebook, X, and TikTok with no sign they were posing as anything other than actual news.

(Screenshot of X post)

But the post is not news — neither “breaking” nor “developing.” It was created as satire. The X account that first posted the claim, @PatMaguire10, describes itself as an “unfiltered parody account.” Other social media users saw the post and reshared it without that disclaimer.

There are no articles from Fox News reporting this story. And a Fox News spokesperson confirmed the network never reported this.

Daniels became a household name in 2018 after she said she had sex with President Donald Trump in 2006 while he was married. Trump has repeatedly denied the claims.

Trump in April pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York, charges that prosecutors said stemmed from a 2016 “hush money” payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

We rate the claim that Fox News reported on a “business relationship” between Johnson and Daniels False.

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November 16, 2023
PolitiFact – Hail to the commander in chief: It’s President Joe Biden, not former President Donald Trump

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Did former President Donald Trump recently claim that he’s still the commander in chief?

No, but a recent Instagram post points to a Nov. 11 campaign rally as evidence that he did.

“I will 100% prevent World War III,” Trump says in a video clip in the post. Text above the video, from a Nov. 12 X post, reads: “Trump just told everyone he IS COMMANDER IN CHIEF.”

“You’re going to end up in World War III,” he continues. “You look at what’s going on right now in the Middle East and Ukraine, and you add it up and we have somebody that has no clue what the hell is going on. You’re going to end up in World War III because of this — no reason for it. Millions of people will die. I know the players, I know the job, I alone in this primary have borne the burden of having troops in harm’s way as commander in chief of the U.S armed forces.”

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.)

Trump’s comments in context, from a Nov. 11 campaign rally in Claremont, New Hampshire,

make clear that he’s referring to his past experience relative to the other 2024 Republican presidential primary candidates. None of them have previously served as commander in chief, as he has.

President Joe Biden is the current commander in chief.

We rate claims that Trump said Trump is now commander in chief False.

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November 15, 2023
PolitiFact – Old photo of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla wearing a mask is mischaracterized as new

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A recent Instagram post takes a potshot at Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla for supposedly donning a face mask days earlier to protect himself against COVID-19.

“Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla wearing a mask in November 2023,”says the Nov. 15 post, which is overlaid with a clown emoji. Bourla appears in the photo with four other people wearing face masks that read, “SCIENCE WILL WIN.”

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.)

Bourla posted the photo Nov. 9 on X, but he makes clear in the post that the photo isn’t new.

“Three years ago today, we were able to share with the world the joyous news that our #COVID19 vaccine was highly effective in preventing disease,” Bourla said in the post. “It was one of the best moments of my career. We could not have reached this point without the extraordinary efforts of our talented and dedicated @Pfizer colleagues and @BioNTech_Group partners. This photo was taken moments after we received the good news from our R&D (research & development) team, and you can see the smiles through our masks.”

On Nov. 9, 2020, Pfizer announced that its vaccine “was found to be more than 90% effective, according to clinical results released by the company” that day, NPR reported.

We rate claims this photo was taken in November 2023 False.

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November 15, 2023
PolitiFact – No, the first lady didn’t say President Joe Biden is a cheerleader for ‘atrocities’ in Gaza

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A video circulating on social media has some users questioning whether it’s authentic or not. It’s not.

“My name is Jill Biden, and I want to tell you about my husband, Joe,” first lady Jill Biden appears to say in the video. “Joe is the world’s biggest cheerleader for the atrocities happening now in Gaza.”

The video then cuts to a clip of Joe Biden saying: “The United States stands with Israel.”

Then a voice that sounds like Jill Biden’s says: “Right now, the right-wing, extremist government of Israel is raining down hell on Palestinian civilians. They’ve killed over 1,000 children in the last few days. This is a genocide. Normal people around the world are standing up and demanding an end to the horror. But the only one who can stop it is Joe. The United States of America is supporting the actions of Israel. And the U.S. taxpayer is funding it. So, come on, Joe from Scranton. Tell Israeli George W. Bush no more money for his bombs, cut the funding, call for a ceasefire, end this f— nightmare.” (An image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears on the screen during the mention of “Israeli George W. Bush.”)

An 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 and Instagram.)

The footage of Jill Biden comes from a 2020 presidential campaign ad for Joe Biden. She doesn’t make the remarks in the video circulating Instagram.

Rather, she says, “My name is Jill Biden, and I want to tell you about my husband, Joe. I first met Joe two years after a car accident that injured his sons and killed his wife and his baby daughter. His life had been shattered. But as one of Joe’s favorite quotes remind us, ‘Faith sees best in the dark.’”

We rate claims that the video that appears to show her calling Joe Biden a cheerleader for atrocities is authentic Pants on Fire!

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November 15, 2023
PolitiFact – Infant mortality rose for first time in 20 years, but no evidence ties it to COVID-19 vaccines

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The U.S. infant mortality rate rose 3% in 2022, the first year-to-year increase in 20 years, a Nov. 1 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics shows.

The increase’s cause is unknown, but some social media users are blaming a familiar target — COVID-19 vaccines.

A Nov. 10 Instagram post stitched together screenshots of several CNN articles with headlines that showed health officials urging pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and one Nov. 1 headline that read, “US infant mortality rate rises for first time in more than 20 years.”

A caption with the post read, “The dots are basically touching each other and some still can’t connect them.”

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 and Instagram.)

We found other social media posts making the same claim.

(Screenshot from Instagram)

There is no evidence connecting the infant mortality rate increase to the COVID-19 vaccines, which went to market in early 2021. Health officials say getting the COVID-19 virus can complicate pregnancy and that a growing body of studies have proved the vaccines to be safe to take during pregnancy.

What the report said

The report’s data shows the provisional (not final) infant mortality rate increased from 5.44 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2021 to 5.6 deaths in 2022, a 3% rise.

It was the first year-to-year rise in the rate since 2002, when the rate increased 2.94% over 2001.

The total number of deaths among infants, babies younger than a year old, for 2022 was 20,548, also a 3% increase. Overall, the infant mortality rate has declined 22% since 2002, the report said.

Among the report’s findings were significant mortality rate increases for male infants, infants born to American Indian, Alaskan native and white women and infants born to women ages 25 to 29.

Two of the 10 leading causes of infant mortality increased significantly, maternal complications of pregnancy and bacterial sepsis of a newborn, the report said.

The report listed no cause for the mortality rate increase and did not mention COVID-19 or vaccines.

No connection to vaccines

Dr. Rachel Moon, a University of Virginia School of Medicine pediatrics professor, said the claim about COVID-19 vaccines causing the rise in infant mortality is unsubstantiated.

“There has been no association of COVID-19 vaccines increasing mortality in general, and there is no biological plausibility to the claim,” Moon said.

If it were true that vaccines were causing higher rates of infant mortality, Moon said, then we would see higher rates of infant mortality in areas with high vaccination rates — but that’s not what the data shows.

The report highlighted significant increases in infant mortality rates in four states: Georgia (+13%), Iowa (+30%), Missouri (+16%) and Texas (+8%).

Moon noted that in those four states, the percentage of residents who received the primary COVID-19 vaccine series was lower than Northeastern states with higher vaccination rates, according to CDC vaccination data.

The vaccination rates in Georgia (57.5%), Iowa (64.5%), Missouri (59.2%) and Texas (63.5%) don’t show how many pregnant people were vaccinated, but Moon said they would likely reflect overall vaccination trends in those states.

“If vaccines were indeed the reason, I would expect the infant mortality rates to be the highest in the Northeast, which has the highest vaccination rates,” Moon said.

New York, for example, had 81% of residents vaccinated, but the infant mortality rate there rose 2%. Connecticut had 83% or residents vaccinated, but had a 9% decrease in its infant mortality rate.

The report also highlighted Nevada’s 22% decrease in its infant mortality rate. That state had 63.8% of its residents receive at least two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, a rate comparable to the four states highlighted in the report with significant increases in infant mortality.

Moon also said the report showed a larger increase in infant mortality rate in male infants. “I would anticipate that the rates in females and males would be the same,” if vaccines were the cause, she said.

In response to the report’s findings, American Academy of Pediatrics President Dr. Sandy Chung released a statement saying there are many reasons the infant mortality rate in the U.S. is “shockingly high.” She cited poverty and racial and ethnic disparities related to accessible health care among them.

COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy

The CDC and other health organizations recommend that pregnant women be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The CDC said people who are pregnant or were recently pregnant are more likely to get very sick from COVID-19 compared with people who aren’t pregnant. Getting the virus can increase the risk of pregnancy complications, the CDC said.

Studies of women before and during pregnancy have shown no increased risk for pregnancy complications such as miscarriage, preterm delivery, stillbirth or birth defects, the CDC said.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said on its website there’s “no evidence of adverse maternal or fetal effects” from the vaccine and a growing body of evidence proves its safety for use during pregnancy.

The National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine also recommend COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy.

Our ruling

An Instagram post claimed that a rise in infant mortality rates in 2022 is tied to COVID-19 vaccines.

National data shows a rise in infant mortality in the U.S. for the first time in two decades, but the CDC report documenting this trend did not determine a cause.

COVID-19 vaccination rates in four states highlighted in the report that had significant increases in infant mortality rates were much lower than vaccination rates in states with small increases or decreases in infant mortality. Studies have shown no increased risk of birth complications in people who were vaccinated while pregnant. Getting the COVID-19 virus can increase the risk of pregnancy complications, the CDC said.

We rate the claim False.

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November 15, 2023
PolitiFact – Instagram post inaccurately quotes House Speaker Mike Johnson on workers and abortion

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An Instagram post attributes a dystopian statement about mandatory childbirth to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

“Every woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker,” Johnson is quoted as saying next to his photo and under the words “Are you KIDDING ME?”

Two liberal Instagram accounts shared the Nov. 12 post. Similar posts, on X, were shared and then fact-checked in early November, but that didn’t stop the spread of this false quote.

We could find no evidence that Johnson said this. A spokesperson for Johnson told fellow fact-checkers at USA Today the quote is not real.

(Screenshot of an Instagram Post)

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.)

The quote is a misleading paraphrase of comments Johnson made in May 2022 about the economy and what the population’s size would be if abortion access had not been protected under Roe v. Wade.

“Roe v. Wade gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America,” Johnson said May 11, 2022, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

The hearing took place days after a draft Supreme Court decision that would overturn federal abortion protections was leaked to the press.

During the hearing, Johnson expressed his support for this decision, then tried to illustrate what life would have been like had the Roe v. Wade precedent been different.

“My high school class should have been almost twice as large as it was,” he said. “Your classmates were not allowed to be born.”

Johnson also referred to how the economy could have changed if the population had been larger:

“We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest,” he said. “If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this.”

On Oct. 25, the day Johnson won the speaker election, President Joe Biden’s campaign and House Democrats circulated clips of Johnson’s comments on X, formerly Twitter.

Although Johnson did refer to able-bodied workers when discussing abortions, there is no evidence he said, “Every woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker.”

We rate this claim False.

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November 13, 2023
PolitiFact – Pennsylvania voting machine error did not reveal ‘election fraud’

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An Election Day glitch in eastern Pennsylvania has some social media users declaring it evidence that the entire country’s election system is corrupt.

Text on a Nov. 8 Instagram post read, “Are U.S. elections compromised?”

Below that, the post shared a screenshot of an X post from conservative commentator Benny Johnson that said, “Voting machines in Pennsylvania are now being shut down after reports of machines ‘flipping votes.’ And this is why Americans have lost all faith in our electoral process.”

“Add this to the list of election fraud cases we’ve recently learned about,” Johnson’s post said.

(Screengrab from Instagram)

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 and Instagram.)

This post gives a misleading impression of what happened on Election Day in Pennsylvania.

Some voters in Northampton County, about 50 miles north of Philadelphia, reported seeing voting machines appear to switch their votes in two judicial races. But local voting rights advocates who reviewed the matter said they found no indication of election fraud.

Voters statewide were asked to decide whether two sitting Superior Court judges, Democrat Jack Panella and Republican Victor Stabile, should retain their positions for 10 more years. Voters could select “yes” or “no” for each candidate. Panella and Stabile were not running against each other; both were seeking an additional term.

However, Northampton County officials found that a voting machine programming error caused votes for the two judges to appear switched when voters’ ballot choices were printed. For example, if a voter marked “yes” for Panella and “no” for Stabile, the printed summary read “no” for Panella and “yes” for Stabile.

Northampton County government officials said that despite this printer output error, their review of the matter found the voting machines’ backend system recorded voters’ choices accurately and all votes were tabulated properly.

“What you read (on paper) and what the computer reads are two different things. The computer does not read the text that is printed out,” said Northampton County Administration Director Charles Dertinger, who oversees the elections division, during a Nov. 7 press conference.

Election Systems & Software, the company that made the ExpressXL voting machines, took responsibility for the error. Linda Bennett, the company’s senior vice president of customer operations, said at the press conference that “a clerical labeling error that was made by an ES&S employee” caused the printed summary to show the wrong vote selection.

The county briefly took the voting machines offline Election Day morning when the issue arose. After obtaining a court order, the county was permitted to continue using the machines as long as voters were informed of the issue.

Pennsylvania’s State Department said this issue affected only some voters in Northampton County, and only those two judicial seat questions. No other statewide races were affected, the department said.

As of Nov. 10, the state’s unofficial election results show both Panella and Stabile retaining their Superior Court seats, each with a margin of hundreds of thousands of votes. About 60,000 votes were cast for these races in Northampton County.

Five local voting rights advocacy groups, including Common Cause Pennsylvania and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, called the incident “an unfortunate situation caused by human error,” but said it did not amount to election fraud.

“This is a programming error that is being weaponized for disinformation purposes,” Philip Hensley-Robin, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, told PolitiFact.

The voting rights groups urged election officials to investigate the voting machine error and make changes to ensure similar mistakes do not occur in future elections.

We rate the claim that this instance of Pennsylvania voting machines “flipping votes” is evidence of “election fraud” False.

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November 10, 2023
PolitiFact – No evidence of a serial killer in Cincinnati, police say

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After a woman’s dismembered body was discovered Nov. 5 in a Cincinnati neighborhood, social media users have spread rumors that more bodies were found and that a serial killer may be on the loose.

“Females please be safe and keep something on you and walk in groups,” a person warned in a Nov 9 Facebook post. “There is a serial killer in Cincinnati.”

The post claimed that seven women’s bodies have been found “chopped up” and urged followers to share the post to get the word out.

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.)

The body of one unidentified victim, a Black woman in her late 20s or early 30s, was found in a wooded area in the city’s North Fairmount neighborhood. Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Kode Sammarco said in a Nov. 7 news conference that she ruled the death a homicide.

But no other dismembered bodies have been found. Sammarco, who couldn’t be reached because of the Veterans Day holiday, told The Cincinnati Enquirer in a Nov 9 article that her office had not received calls about any other dismembered bodies being discovered.

Cincinnati Police Department spokesperson Lt. Jonathan Cunningham said he has been receiving calls asking whether more bodies had been found.

“This is completely false,” he told PolitiFact in a Nov. 10 email. “There is only one dismembered body found, which was located on Sunday, Nov. 5.”

The investigation into that case continues.

The Facebook claim that a serial killer has dismembered seven women in Cincinnati is False.

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November 10, 2023
PolitiFact – A stealth bomber recently spotted in New York is unrelated to Israel, contrary to online claims

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A recent TikTok post suggests that a bomber aircraft spotted in New York is evidence that the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah will attack Israel.

“Alert,” text in the November video says. “B-2 stealth bomber seen over New York” and “Hezbollah may declare war on Israel tomm,” using an abbreviation for “tomorrow.”

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.)

It’s true that a B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber was spotted flying Nov. 2 in Ulster County, New York, as reported by the Daily Freeman, a Kingston, New York, newspaper. But Francis J. DeMaro Jr., a spokesperson for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the paper that the B-2 flyover was part of a training mission held as part of a spirit week related to the Army versus Air Force football game.

“It’s considered a Spirit so in the spirit of the football game, the Air Force shows its strength by flying aircraft over the Academy,” DeMaro said.

West Point wrote about the flyover in a Nov. 2 Facebook post, making clear it was connected to the football game and not to Israel.

The Freeman also reported that West Point warned about the flyover in an Oct. 17 press release, saying that in preparation for the game, the Army had begun “their traditional flyovers above the skies of the West Point.”

We rate claims the flyover is related to Hezbollah and Israel Pants on Fire!

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November 10, 2023
PolitiFact – Claim that New York fraud case is unrelated to Trump property is disputed by case itself

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Donald Trump and daughter Ivanka Trump took the witness stand to testify in New York’s fraud trial against the former president and his business.

As he campaigns to reclaim the White House in 2024, Trump has been active on his social media platform Truth Social throughout the trial, and a post he made before Ivanka’s Nov. 8 testimony caught some social media users’ attention.

“It all makes sense now,” said a woman in a video posted Nov. 8. The woman repeatedly referred to a screenshot of Donald Trump’s Nov. 8 Truth Social post, which said that Ivanka would be testifying. “This whole court case — now that it’s all coming together, it has nothing to do with his home in Mar-a-Lago. Nothing.”

The woman claimed she had “decoded” parts of the former president’s Truth Social post and determined that the case wasn’t about the value of Trump’s assets at all.

“Letitia Peekaboo James, she decodes to this — Are you ready for this? — Trump prophecy,” she said, without explaining how she drew “decoding” conclusions.

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.)

(Screengrab from Facebook)

The video’s claim that the New York case against Trump has “nothing to do with” Mar-a-Lago is inaccurate.

In 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit, alleging that Trump and the Trump Organization “created more than 200 false and misleading valuations of assets” to defraud financial institutions. The lawsuit alleges that from 2011 to 2021, Trump and his businesses inflated assets by billions of dollars to save hundreds of millions of dollars on loans and insurance.

Trump has denied wrongdoing. The civil fraud trial continued as of Nov. 10.

Among the properties with disputed valuations is Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

On Sept. 26, New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that from 2011 to 2021, the Palm Beach County property appraiser determined Mar-a-Lago’s value was “between $18 million and $27.6 million.” But financial records show that Trump valued Mar-a-Lago from $426 million to $612 million, “an overvaluation of at least 2,300%,” Engoron wrote in his court order, using italicization.

The county appraiser is a government office that assesses property values for tax purposes only, and experts say a county appraiser’s valuation is often lower than what a property could be sold for on the open market. Palm Beach real estate experts told media outlets that $18 million was a very low valuation.

When Engoron ruled Sept. 26 that Trump and his company were liable for fraud, he relied on more than discrepancies with Mar-a-Lago’s valuation. The judge also chastised Trump for claiming his Manhattan apartment was nearly three times its actual size and inflating its valuation, for example.

Regardless of Mar-a-Lago’s exact value, the question of whether Trump assets’ values were inflated remains central to the New York fraud case.

Our ruling

A Facebook post claimed that New York’s fraud case against Trump “has nothing to do with his home in Mar-a-Lago.”

The case against Trump clearly lays out that overvaluation of properties — including Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — is a key component to the fraud trial.

We rate this claim False.

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November 10, 2023
PolitiFact – Altered video appears to show Canadian politician promoting an Elon Musk project, but it’s fake

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A video recently shared on Facebook appears to show Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada, promoting X owner Elon Musk’s “latest project,” which he touts as a moneymaking opportunity exclusive to Canadians.

But this video was altered.

A Nov. 3 Facebook post sharing it 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.)

The original footage of Ford, from September, shows him criticizing interest rate hikes and the Bank of Canada.

The altered video follows a pattern we’ve found on social media in which clips appear to show news anchors or other public figures discussing get-rich-quick investment opportunities from Musk.

But they’re fake, and so is this video. We rate it False.

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November 10, 2023