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Tag: Facebook Fact-checks

  • Statue was created digitally, not with ruins of artist’s hom

    Statue was created digitally, not with ruins of artist’s hom

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    A 2012 viral image by a Syrian artist of a Statue of Liberty-inspired structure is being mischaracterized online. 

    “A Syrian artist built this with the ruins of his house,” a May 23 Facebook post said. The post includes an image of building blocks reconstructed to resemble the Statue of Liberty. 

    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)

    But Tammam Azzam, the art’s creator, has repeatedly told media outlets that the image was made digitally, not from his home’s ruins. 

    Azzam first shared the image on Facebook in 2012 with the caption, “Statue of Liberty (Photomontage).” A photomontage is created by combining multiple photographs. 

    Azzam told Agence France-Presse in 2021 that he created the artwork on a computer. “It was part of my photomontage series I did in Dubai (United Arab Emirates in) 2012, and it’s clearly photographed, repeated parts and scanned paper,” Azzam said. 

    He also told Al Arabiya, a Saudi state-owned news channel, in 2016 that his artwork had been wrongly interpreted. 

    Azzam’s website includes many other photomontages. His website details how he uses “graphic design as a tool with which to overlay photos of destroyed buildings with European master paintings.” 

    We rate the claim that this image shows a Statue of Liberty replica built from a Syrian artist’s house ruins False. 

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  • Fact-checking 2020 election fraud claims in Georgia

    Fact-checking 2020 election fraud claims in Georgia

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    As the 2024 presidential election approaches, some social media users continue to spread false claims that the 2020 presidential contest was stolen, pointing to purported fraud in Georgia as evidence.

    A May 9 Instagram post claimed that Fulton County, Georgia, election officials “scanned more than 3,000 ballots twice during the recount of the 2020 presidential election.” The post also claimed, “There are 380,761 ballot images from machine count that are not available from 2020 elections.”

    The post’s caption read, “Georgia was stolen. But they swore there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. Now there’s proof.”

    Other Instagram posts made similar claims about double-scanned ballots and missing ballot images from the 2020 election in Georgia.

    These claims went viral after a May 7 Georgia Elections Board meeting in which board members heard testimony and received findings from a state investigation into multiple allegations of 2020 election fraud in Fulton County. The largely Democratic county, which includes parts of Atlanta, has often been at the center of 2020 voter fraud claims.

    The secretary of state’s office began investigating after Georgia resident Joseph Rossi and Texas resident Kevin Moncla filed a complaint in 2022. The complaint accused Fulton County of improperly recounting the 2020 presidential election and said the complainants had found other voting irregularities.

    State investigators told the Georgia Elections Board they found errors in Fulton County’s recount of the 2020 presidential contest, but the discrepancies did not significantly change the election results.

    Because of these errors, the Georgia Elections Board voted 2-1 to reprimand Fulton County elections officials and ordered the county to install an independent election monitor ahead of the 2024 election.

    In the Peach State’s 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 11,779 votes. Three vote counts — the initial machine tabulation, a hand-counted risk-limiting audit and a machine recount — produced similar vote tallies that confirmed Biden’s victory in Georgia.

    Did Fulton County officials scan thousands of 2020 ballots twice?

    Fulton County election officials scanned some 2020 ballots twice, but investigators couldn’t determine whether they were counted twice.

    State investigators said during the May 7 meeting that they found 3,075 duplicate ballot images in Fulton County from the statewide machine recount of the 2020 presidential election. They couldn’t determine whether any duplicates were tabulated in the recount.

    Ballot images are not counted as votes, the state investigators said. Election workers use these electronic pictures of ballots during vote tabulation to ensure the vote count’s accuracy, they said.

    For instance, if a ballot scanner detects an ambiguous mark that it can’t read, an election worker will compare the ballot image with the paper ballot to determine where the mark is and what it means, Georgia secretary of state spokesperson Mike Hassinger told PolitiFact.

    “If the ‘3,000 duplicate ballot images’ had been counted as votes (again, images are not used to count votes) the results would have been off by 3,000 — and they were not,” Hassinger said. Comparing the initial results with the machine recount, there were 880 fewer votes for president counted in the machine recount.

    The state investigators explained that the duplicate ballot images likely occurred because an error during the tabulation process required some ballots to be rescanned.

    After rescanning these ballots and before submitting the results, election officials could delete the results and ballot images from the first scan, said Charlene McGowan, general counsel for the secretary of state’s office. Election officials might have deleted the duplicate ballot results, but not the duplicate ballot images, she said.

    “So, there is a way that it is possible for there to be duplicative ballot images that appear within the images, but not necessarily with the count,” McGowan said. “We can’t say conclusively one way or the other because ballots are anonymous and there’s no way to know for sure.”

    Are more than 380,000 ballot images missing from the 2020 election in Fulton County?

    State and local officials did not substantiate this claim.

    During the May 7 meeting, Elections Board member Janice Johnston asked state investigators and Fulton County officials “why 380,761 ballot images from Election Day” are “not available.” The Georgia Republican Party appointed Johnston to the board in 2022.

    McGowan said state investigators subpoenaed Fulton County for its ballot images from the recount, not Election Day, as the recount is what the complaint disputed.

    Fulton County officials said at the meeting they didn’t know about this allegation and so could not comment. PolitiFact also contacted Fulton County’s elections office and received no response.

    Hassinger also said he didn’t know where this figure originated.

    “The proper answer to ‘unavailable ballot images’ of ANY number is ‘So what?’” he said. “It wasn’t required under the law, and images are not used to tally votes.”

    In 2020, Georgia law did not require election officials to keep ballot images. In 2021, the state Legislature passed a law requiring ballot images to be retained and subject to public disclosure.

    Do these claims mean Georgia’s 2020 election results are invalid?

    No. All three vote counts in Georgia confirmed that Biden won the state’s 2020 presidential election.

    In Fulton County, specifically, the initial tabulation reported 524,659 votes cast in the presidential contest, including 137,240 votes for Donald Trump and 381,144 votes for Joe Biden.

    The risk-limiting audit, conducted by hand, found that 525,293 votes were cast in Fulton County for the presidential election, including 137,620 votes for Trump and 381,179 votes for Biden.

    Finally, the machine recount, requested by Trump, reported 523,779 votes cast for president in Fulton County. Trump received 137,247 of those votes, a net gain of seven votes; and Biden received 380,212 of the votes, a net loss of 932 votes.

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  • Bird flu outbreak now affecting cows began in US in 2022

    Bird flu outbreak now affecting cows began in US in 2022

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    World Health Organization Chief Scientist Dr. Jeremy Farrar expressed concern in an April 18 news conference about an outbreak of the bird flu, known as H5N1, at U.S. dairy farms. He urged health officials to better monitor and prepare in case the virus evolves and begins spreading among humans.

    At least three U.S. farm workers have been infected with the virus, but there’s no evidence of human-to-human transmission, Farrar said, calling it a “global zoonotic animal pandemic.”

    Nevertheless, some social media users are using his words and other bird flu news to suggest that unknown actors are planning a new pandemic in an election year.

    “Tell me the Presidential elections coming up without telling me Presidential elections coming up,” a May 12 Instagram post said in sticker text on a video of Farrar speaking about avian influenza.

    The post noted that 70 people In Colorado are “under surveillance for having potentially contracted bird flu,” and included the hashtags #WAKEUPAMERICA, #BYDESIGN AND #SCAMDEMIC.

    It’s unclear how the poster thinks a bird flu pandemic would affect the  U.S. elections in November. But the claim echoes similar widely debunked claims that elites planned the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, also an election year. Some of them said COVID-19 was created to hurt former President Donald Trump’s chances at re-election.

    We found multiple examples of social media users — some using the same video of Farrar — tying the bird flu news to the upcoming election and suggesting unnamed forces are using the virus to spread fear and exert control.

    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.)

    (Instagram screenshot)

    The Instagram post shared clips of Farrar at the April 18 WHO news conference in Geneva., responding to a question about the bird flu virus that has spread globally, infecting dairy cows in the U.S.

    The H5N1 virus has been found in U.S. birds since 2022 and has infected more than 92 million birds in 48 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The virus has spread to mammals, with outbreaks reported in dozens of dairy herds in nine states. 

    But there is no bird flu pandemic in the U.S., at least among humans. Farrar urged strong surveillance of the virus so health officials can be prepared with vaccines and therapeutics should it evolve to spread between humans.

    “The great concern, of course, is that in doing so and infecting ducks and chickens — but now increasingly mammals — that that virus now evolves and develops the ability to infect humans. And then critically, the ability to go from human-to-human transmission,” he said.

    Avian influenza is not a planned or engineered virus. It occurs naturally among wild birds, such as ducks and geese that can also infect domestic birds, such as chickens and turkeys, and mammals. Highly pathogenic strains of the virus can cause severe infection and death in birds. There have been global bird flu outbreaks in animals throughout the years, including in the U.S. in 2014-15. The first description of the bird flu was in 1878 in northern Italy. The H5N1 strain was first found in waterfowl in China in 1996.

    Human cases of bird flu are rare, but have occurred globally for nearly three decades, the CDC said. The virus is frequently lethal to humans — about 52% of the 887 people diagnosed with the virus worldwide since 2004 have died, the WHO said.

    The CDC said the risk is low for humans and that the risk depends on exposure to infected animals.

    Thus far, only two people — a Texas dairy farm worker in April and a Michigan farm worker in May — have been infected with the bird flu linked to dairy farms; each had reported mild symptoms. An earlier human case was diagnosed in a Colorado poultry farm worker in 2022.

    The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment told CBS News earlier this month that about 70 dairy farm workers from two farms were being monitored for bird flu symptoms after being exposed to the virus.

    A claim that the bird flu outbreak in the U.S. is being planned to affect the U.S. presidential elections ignores that the H5N1 virus occurs naturally and that bird flu has existed for more than a century. The H5N1 strain was first found in 1996 in southern China. The current outbreak affecting dairy cattle emerged in the U.S. in 2022. The claim is False.

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  • Canceled Pearl Jam Kansas City concert story is satire

    Canceled Pearl Jam Kansas City concert story is satire

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    Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder joined critics of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, who said in a recent college commencement speech that homemaker was “one of the most important titles” a woman could have. 

    “There’s nothing more masculine than a strong man supporting a strong woman,” Vedder said at a May 18 show in Las Vegas.

    Pearl Jam doesn’t have any upcoming shows in Kansas City, according to the tour information on the band’s website, but that’s not because the city canceled planned concerts in allegiance with Butker. 

    “Kansas City cancels three Pearl Jam shows at Arrowhead Stadium: ‘We stand with Harrison Butker,’” read a May 21 Facebook post.

    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.)

    This claim originated on the Facebook account of a self-described satire site. America’s Last Line of Defense, which describes itself as the flagship of a “network of trolley” and is labeled “satire/parody” on Facebook, posted an image of Vedder and Butker on May 20 with text that said, “Kansas City cancels three Pearl Jam shows at Arrowhead Stadium: ‘We stand with Harrison Butker.’”
    We found no news stories or other evidence that Kansas City canceled upcoming Pearl Jam shows. 

    We rate claims that this happened False.

     

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  • Travis Kelce didn’t threaten to quit over Harrison Butker

    Travis Kelce didn’t threaten to quit over Harrison Butker

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    Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce didn’t threaten to quit over teammate Harrison Butker’s recent controversial college commencement speech, but fake news stories reporting as much are being taken out of context online. 

    “Breaking news,” a May 19 Facebook post said. “Travis Kelce takes a stand, ‘I will resign if Harrison Butker is on the team next season.’”

    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.)

    We found no credible news stories or other sources to corroborate this claim, although wedid find several similar social media and blog posts that were clearly labeled as satire. 

    Among them: that Kelce “vows to quit Chiefs immediately if team doesn’t fire Harrison Butker.”

    Kansas City head coach Andy Reid told reporters May 22 that no one with the team has complained about Butker’s remarks.

    Kelce, meanwhile, called Butker a “great person and a great teammate” on a recent episode of his podcast. Kelce said Butker’s comments, which included encouraging women to be homemakers, were Butker’s opinions. 

    “I can’t say I agree with the majority of it, or just about any of it, outside of him loving his family and his kids. And I don’t think that I should judge him by his views, especially his religious views of how to go about life—that’s just not who I am.”  

    We rate claims that Kelce threatened to quit False.

     

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  • Pentagon story about U.N. troops coming to U.S. is fake

    Pentagon story about U.N. troops coming to U.S. is fake

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    This image of what looks like a news headline is alarming some social media users: “UN troops to be deployed across U.S. as Pentagon prepares for ‘civil unrest.’”

    “This is an act of war!!” said a May 18 Instagram post sharing the image. 

    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 found the headline on a May 15 article on a website called “The People’s Voice,” which has previously published fake news.

    That story says that “the Biden regime has agreed to allow thousands of UN troops to be deployed across the U.S. in anticipation of mass civil unrest in America” and that “the U.N. is directing the migrant crisis in America.”

    But the post provides no evidence to support the claim. We looked for credible news reports to corroborate the claim and found none. 

    We also asked the Pentagon about the post. 

    In a statement, the Pentagon told PolitiFact that the story “is false.” 

    We rate it Pants on Fire!

     

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  • Chiefs coach Andy Reid didn’t threaten to quit

    Chiefs coach Andy Reid didn’t threaten to quit

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    Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s recent commencement address at Benedictine College has drawn criticism for his remarks about motherhood and sparked misinformation. 

    We’ve already debunked a claim that Butker said society would be better off if “women had more babies than thoughts.” 

    Another, in which the Kansas City Chiefs coach allegedly threatens to quit if the team drops Butker, is also fake. 

    “Andy Reed says he’ll stand with Harrison Butker: ‘If they get rid of Harrison, they get rid of me,’” reads text over an image of Butker and Reid, misspelling Reid’s last name. 

    “‘I’m not losing a great kicker to this whole woke thing,’” a May 18 Facebook post quoted Reid as saying. “‘Not on my watch.’” 

    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.)

    This claim originated on the Facebook account of a self-described satire site. 

    America’s Last Line of Defense, which describes itself as the flagship of a “network of trolley” and is labeled “satire/parody” on Facebook, posted an image of Butker and Reid on May 18 with text that said, “Andy Reed says he’ll stand with Harrison Butker: ‘If they get rid of Harrison, they get rid of me.’”

    “The Chiefs have been hinting that they’re planning on releasing the kicker but head coach Andy Reed says no way,” the post said. “‘I’m not losing a great kicker to this whole woke thing. Not on my watch.’”

    Although there is an online petition for the Chiefs to cut Butker, we found neither evidence that the team has considered doing so nor that Reid has spoken out in Butker’s defense.

    Although the “NFL distanced itself” from Harrison’s comments, the Kansas City Star reported May 17, but “the Chiefs have remained mum to this point about Butker.”

    We rate claims that Reid threatened to quit over Butker False.

     

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  • Video shows 2019 flight, not Singapore Airlines turbulence

    Video shows 2019 flight, not Singapore Airlines turbulence

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    In a video going viral on X, a woman in a plane puts on a jacket. Seconds later, the plane jolts and sends a nearby flight attendant and her cart into the air. The cart spills its contents on the woman, who folds her hands together as shouts erupt around the cabin.

    X accounts are sharing this video claiming it’s from a Singapore Airlines flight that experienced severe turbulence May 21. One person died during the incident and media reported at least 71 were injured, according to a Bangkok hospital that treated the passengers.

    (Screenshot from X)

    But a reverse-image search shows the video shared in these viral posts depicts a flight from nearly five years ago.

    Mirjeta Basha uploaded the video June 17, 2019, on Storyful, a social media intelligence company. Basha was aboard an ALK Airlines flight from Pristina, Kosovo, to Basel, Switzerland. Ten people were injured on that flight because of severe turbulence. 

    The Boeing 777-300ER operated by Singapore Airlines took off from London May 20 and was bound for Singapore. It was diverted to Bangkok.

    Media published authentic images from the aftermath of the Singapore Airlines flight, showing damaged parts of the ceiling and trays and beverages scattered on the floor. 

    But this video circulating on X shows a flight from 2019, not turbulence from the Singapore Airlines flight that caused one casualty. We rate that claim False. ​

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  • Dr. Sebi’s daughter wasn’t imprisoned

    Dr. Sebi’s daughter wasn’t imprisoned

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    After Alfredo “Dr. Sebi” Bowman, a self-proclaimed herbalist healer, contracted pneumonia and died in 2016 while in a Honduran jail, rumors spread on social media that he had been killed for promoting alternative diets. 

    His family debunked those claims. Now, Sebi’s family is the subject of misinformation. 

    PolitiFact recently fact-checked and found false a claim that “Dr. Sebi’s cousin was sent to prison” for revealing “gatekept health secrets.” 

    Other Facebook posts now claim that “Dr. Sebi’s daughter was SENTENCED to 155 years in prison for revealing TOP SECRET health hacks.” 

    These 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.)

    We found no evidence that this claim is authentic. We looked for credible news stories to corroborate the posts but found none, and discovered no public statements from Sebi’s daughter, Kellie Bowman, about the claim. We reached out to her for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

    But an image of the supposed incarcerated daughter in at least one of the posts making the claim is suspect. Doing a reverse image search, we found nothing connecting the picture to Sebi, and if you look closely at the woman’s bound wrists, they seem to converge into one sole hand. 

    This post and the post about Sebi’s cousin supposedly being “life in prison” for revealing “gatekept health secrets” seem to follow a formula. Yet another post PolitiFact fact-checked claimed that the cousin of Barbara O’Neill, a former Australian naturopath, was “sentenced to life in prison for revealing … gatekept health secrets.”

    That post was fake, and so is this one. 

    We rate it False.

     

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  • Claim about Lia Thomas, Olympics started on fake news site

    Claim about Lia Thomas, Olympics started on fake news site

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    With the 2024 Summer Olympics nearing, misinformation about transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has proliferated online. 

     “U.S. Olympic committee says Lia Thomas is welcome to try out for the men’s team,” reads text in an image labeled “news” that’s being shared on social media. 

    “Thomas won’t be swimming for the US Women’s team anytime soon,” a May 12 Facebook post said. 

    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 post included a link in the comments that led to a website called “Freshstoryes.”  A May 11 post’s headline there said, “US Olympic committee says Lia Thomas is welcome to try out — for the men’s team.” 

    That blog post included no indication that this is fake news — but it is. 

    The story was lifted from SpaceXArena, which describes itself as a site that uses “parody and exaggeration to mock current events and trends and to provide entertainment and laughter to our readers.”

    The site’s undated post about Thomas is labeled “satire.” We searched for but found no credible news stories reporting that any Olympic-affiliated group suggested Thomas try out for the men’s team.

    Thomas is challenging transgender restrictions imposed by World Aquatics, swimming’s global governing body. She made history as a University of Pennsylvania swimmer in 2022 when she became the first transgender athlete to win a NCAA Division I title. Later that year, she was nominated for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.

    But claims the “U.S. Olympic committee” encouraged her to try out for the men’s team are False. 

     

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  • Helicopter emoji X post didn’t beat news of Iran crash

    Helicopter emoji X post didn’t beat news of Iran crash

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    Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a May 19 helicopter crash that spurred a wave of speculation and misinformation on social media.

    One post showed a screenshot of an X post of a helicopter emoji from an Israel-aligned X account called Israel War Room:

    “Israel War Room posted this ‘ambiguous’ emoji minutes before the news of the Iranian president’s helicopter crash landing broke across a majority of news networks around the globe,” the May 20 Instagram post said. “Coincidence?”

    (Screenshot from Instagram)

    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.)

    Israel War Room, a pro-Israel account that tracks Israel-related news on Instagram and X, was not the first account to post about the helicopter crash that killed Raisi.

    The Tehran Times, an Iranian newspaper in English, posted about the helicopter crash at 8:44 a.m. on May 19. The Associated Press posted about the helicopter crash at 8:53 am ET. The Tasnim News Agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an influential paramilitary organization within Iran, also posted about the crash at 8:53 a.m. ET.

    Israel War Room, which on its X profile and its domain registration lists its location as in the U.S., posted a helicopter emoji five minutes later — at 8:58 a.m. ET.

    Israel War Room’s X post didn’t come before news outlets first reported news of the helicopter crash. We rate that claim False.

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  • Beyoncé wasn’t banned from the Grand Ole Opry

    Beyoncé wasn’t banned from the Grand Ole Opry

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    The Grand Ole Opry has a complicated history with Black musicians, but has the Nashville, Tennessee, country mecca really banned Beyoncé?

    That’s what a May 19 Facebook post’s caption claims, saying, “Breaking News: The Grand Ole Opry Bans Beyoncé For Life, “‘Go Play Dress-Up, You’re Not Country.’”

    But the release of Beyoncé’s new country-inspired album, “Cowboy Carter,” has not prompted a ban from the Grand Ole Opry, a storied live music venue.

    It has inspired many fake claims, such as this one we’ve already checked claiming that “Jay-Z paid more than $20 million to country radio stations to play Beyoncé songs so she’d top the Billboard country charts.”

    That story originated on a self-described satire site, and so did this claim about an Opry ban.

     

    The 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 caption also says “full story” with two emojis pointing toward comments containing a link under a photo of Beyoncé, the Grand Ole Opry and a repeat of the lifetime ban claim.

    The link led to a May 15 post on a site titled “DM Newsfeed,” which said the Grand Ole Opry had decided her “musical style and image” were “incompatible with the Opry’s definition of country music.”  

    But this story was poached from another blog — “Esspots” — which identified the article as “satire.” The site describes itself as “your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary.” The Facebook post reshared the story without the satire label.

    In the real world, we found no evidence that the Opry banned Beyoncé — no credible news stories, no statements or press releases from the Opry, and no heated social media debate.

    We rate claims that Beyoncé was banned from the Opry Pants on Fire!

     

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  • Colin Kaepernick wasn’t fired from high school coaching job

    Colin Kaepernick wasn’t fired from high school coaching job

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    Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played in the NFL since the 2016 season, when he began protesting police violence against Black Americans by sitting or kneeling during the pregame national anthem.  

    Has he found himself out of another job? Recent Facebook posts claim as much, saying he “was fired from his new high school coaching job after just one season.”

    “The kids couldn’t stand him,” reads a quote in the May posts. “He’s arrogant and conceited.”

    But this claim originated on self-described satire sites.

    These 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.)

    America’s Last Line of Defense, a network of fake-news websites, posted the story as early as 2023 with the headline, “Colin Kaepernick loses his first coaching job after only six games.” 

    The story says that “the principal of Joseph Barron Senior High School in Des Moines” fired Kaepernick because “he just had a way … of pissing people off” and “was trying to get players to kneel for the National Anthem after just three weeks.”

    Joseph Barron isn’t among the high schools of Des Moines Public Schools, and we couldn’t find a school by that name in Iowa’s capital city.  

    We also found no evidence that Kaepernick ever accepted a high school coaching job. 

    We rate posts that say this claim is authentic Pants on Fire!

     

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  • Abortion activist sentenced under 1994 clinic access law

    Abortion activist sentenced under 1994 clinic access law

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    An anti-abortion activist convicted for her role in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of a Washington, D.C.-area abortion clinic was sentenced May 14 to 57 months in prison.

    Lauren Handy, the activism and mutual aid director for the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, was convicted in August 2023 of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law that prohibits obstructing entrances to reproductive health clinics. She was also found guilty on a felony civil rights charge. 

    Lila Rose, the founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action, said on social media that Handy’s sentence was too severe for her actions.

    “30-year-old pro-life activist Lauren Handy has just been sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for handing roses and resources to women at an abortion facility,” Rose wrote in a May 14 Instagram post. “Meanwhile, abortionists who dismember and kill children walk free. A grave injustice!”

    The 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.)

    Rose’s claim, however, misstates the reason for Handy’s conviction. After PolitiFact contacted Rose, Live Action spokesperson Noah Brandt referred us to Rose’s May 15 X post that clarified her claim. She made the same clarification on her Instagram post. Here is the original archived version.

    “CLARIFICATION: While Lauren has passed out roses and offered counseling and resources at many abortion facilities, Lauren and fellow defendants were convicted of violating the FACE Act — a law that has primarily been used to penalize pro-life activism — for their participation in a non-violent sit-in at Cesare Santangelo’s Washington, D.C. late-term abortion facility,” she wrote, in a post that went on to criticize the conviction and sentence as unjust.

    Prosecutors, in their sentencing memorandum, said Handy and her co-defendants planned a “lock-and-block” invasion of the Washington Surgi-Clinic, “during which they used force and physical obstructions to interfere with access to the clinic.”

    Handy planned, organized and directed the protest, which lasted for several hours on Oct. 22, 2020, prosecutors said. Co-defendant Jonathan Darnel, who livestreamed the event, also co-organized the event. He was sentenced May 15 to 34 months in prison.

    Eight other activists were also convicted or pleaded guilty in the case on similar charges. Handy’s sentence is the longest in the case, so far; two other people await sentencing.

    Handy identified herself to police officers as a “blockade organizer,” and admitted her role in social media posts, prosecutors said. She also used a fake name to schedule an appointment to gain access to the clinic. She identified herself using the fake name to a clinic worker as her co-defendants, one of whom had a bag of chains, locks and ropes, hid in the building’s stairwell, prosecutors said.

    Prosecutors said a nurse injured her ankle when another protester, Jay Smith, pushed her as he forcibly entered the clinic. Other defendants were accused of pushing or shoving clinic workers. Prosecutors said the obstruction Handy planned was “especially traumatic” for two clinic patients who testified at trial, one of whom was forced to climb through a window to receive care and another who collapsed in pain while being blocked from the clinic.

    Facebook livestream videos of the protest show some protesters holding literature to pass out. Handy appears several times in the video, speaking with protesters and police officers. She also spoke with Darnel, who was narrating the livestream, and she described allowing a man in to join his partner after he promised to give her anti-abortion literature, but she said “under no circumstances” would a doctor who worked at the clinic be allowed to enter. The videos don’t show her handing out roses, although the videos  total more than two and a half hours and Handy is not on screen the entire time.

    Handy’s online bio says she has helped lead the “Red Rose Movement,” an anti-abortion group that goes to abortion clinics and offers patients “red roses as a sign of life, peace and love.” 

    Darnel, in the first video, described the protest as “historic” and said that he knew he and other protesters were breaking the law.

    “These people are not just counseling inside of an abortion clinic, which is illegal. They are physically preventing women from going in to kill their children,” he said. “This could mean severe criminal penalties for them. But it’s worth it.”

    U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, when handing down her sentence, told Handy that “there may be nothing more American” than protests for and against abortion access, but the law doesn’t allow “violence or obstructive conduct,” The Washington Post reported.

    “That’s what you’re being punished for, not your views on abortion nor your very American commitment to peaceful protest,” Kollar-Kotelly said.

    Rose’s claim that Handy was arrested for “handing out roses and resources” at an abortion protest understates what Handy was accused and convicted of doing. Protesters forcibly invaded a clinic and prevented patients from accessing care, prosecutors said. Rose issued a clarification after PolitiFact contacted her, correctly describing why Handy was convicted. Her original statement is False.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.

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  • CNN report about Robert Downey Jr. app is a deep fake

    CNN report about Robert Downey Jr. app is a deep fake

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    CNN anchor Abby Phillip appears in what looks like a segment about actor Robert Downey Jr. in a recent video shared May 6 on Facebook. 

    But it’s quickly clear that this video isn’t authentic, from a typo in the chyron to audio that doesn’t sync with Phillip’s mouth. 

    “Sensational news,” the chyron says. “The actor Robert Downey Jr has released a new mobile app that allows to earn money!” 

    “The most famous and recognizable actor and one of the richest man of the planet, Robert Downey Jr., decided to open his own online casino where everyone can win,” Phillip appears to say. “In an interview, he talked about the creation of this application and how people of our country can earn a lot of money in it.” 

    The video then cuts to what looks like podcast host Joe Rogan interviewing Downey about the app. But again, the audio doesn’t sync with their mouths’ movements. 

    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 Rogan interview happened in 2020, when Downey was promoting his movie “Doolittle.” 

    In 2023, Downey became an investor, board member and spokesperson for the security and privacy company Aura, which has an online safety app. 

    But we found no evidence that he’s promoting an app that lets people earn money, as the post claims. 

    We rate it False.

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  • Fake X post from Gov. Kristi Noem spreads online

    Fake X post from Gov. Kristi Noem spreads online

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    In her new book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem recalled shooting a 14-month-old dog with an “aggressive personality” that tried to bite the Republican and dispatched some chickens. 

    The revelation shocked some dog lovers, but a supposed response from Noem that’s being shared on social media isn’t authentic. 

    “For everyone who absolutely lost their minds about my decision to shoot a dog twenty years ago, I hope you don’t eat cows or pigs or chickens!” reads what looks like a screenshot of an X post from Noem. “At least I have the guts to look in the eyes of the animal I’m killing!”

    A May 8 Threads post sharing this screenshot 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 alleged statement from Noem veers from the tone of her previous responses to critics. 

    “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” she said in an April 26 X post. “Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”

    A couple of days later, she added on X that it was a 20-year-old story. “South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down,” Noem said. “Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

    We found no evidence that Noem made the statement attributed to her in the Threads post. It doesn’t appear on her X account and there was no news coverage of the purported response.

    Ian Fury, a spokesperson for Noem, told PolitiFact the governor didn’t make this statement.

    We rate this post False.

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  • Elon Musk didn’t warn about a forthcoming Rapture

    Elon Musk didn’t warn about a forthcoming Rapture

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    Elon Musk has not predicted the second coming of Jesus Christ, but a recent Facebook post claims that the X owner has some inside Rapture knowledge. 

    “Elon Musk confirms — ’The rapture is going to happen VERY soon,’” the caption and headline on a May 9 Facebook post say. 

    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.)

    Looking for credible news reports, public statements and social media posts from Musk, we found no evidence to support this claim.

    A narrator in a video included in the post largely muses about the Rapture as a concept. It isn’t until about 4 minutes into the video that the narrator asks, “What did the billionaire Elon Musk say about the rapture?” 

    We kept watching to find out, but no statement about the Rapture is attributed to Musk in the video. 

    Rather, it references a December 2021 interview Musk did with satire site The Babylon Bee. 

    In the interview, the then-creative director of the Babylon Bee asked Musk if he would “accept Jesus as your lord and savior.” 

    Musk said he agreed with the principles Jesus advocated and that “there’s great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus,” such as forgiveness and treating people as you’d like to be treated. 

    “But hey, if Jesus is saving people, I mean, I won’t stand in his way,” Musk added. “Sure, I’ll be saved. Why not?”

    We rate claims that Musk confirmed the Rapture is happening soon False.

     

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  • Chicago’s American Muslims for Palestine raised flag

    Chicago’s American Muslims for Palestine raised flag

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    A recent Instagram post warns of the fall of “Judeo Christian America,” sharing a video of a Palestinian flag being raised and then flying next to an American flag. 

    “Chicago ceremonially raises the Palestinian flag to the same height as the American flag,” the May 13 post says. 

    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 city of Chicago didn’t immediately respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the video. 

    But we found the video in a May 13 YouTube post from Storyful, a company that “discovers, verifies and acquires” user-generated content. The video description says: “The Palestinian flag was raised at the Richard J. Daley Center in Chicago, Illinois, on Saturday, May 11, to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Nakba.”

    The Nakba, the Chicago Tribune explained in a May 11 story about the flag raising, is how Palestinians refer to their mass displacement in 1948 from what is now Israel. This was the third annual flag-raising ceremony to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba. 

    But the city of Chicago didn’t raise the flag. The event was organized by the Chicago chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, which advocates for Palestinian rights. (The chapter also didn’t immediately respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the post.) 

    The chapter advertised the event May 10 on Facebook, inviting people to “join us tomorrow for our flag raising” to “commemorate the anniversary of the 76th Nakba followed by a march to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” 

    “American Muslims for Palestine raised the Palestinian flag Saturday afternoon at Daley Plaza,” Chicago’s ABC News affiliate reported May 11. 

    We rate claims that the city of Chicago raised the flag False.

     

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  • HAARP experiment, aurora borealis are not connected

    HAARP experiment, aurora borealis are not connected

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    A rare, powerful geomagnetic storm over the weekend resulted in the northern lights being visible more widely than normal.

    But some social media users said the brilliant light show of green, blue, pink and purple that many people unexpectedly observed was anything but natural. It was the result, they said, of an experiment from the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, commonly known as HAARP. 

    “Did y’all enjoy the fabricated light show? Stop giving them so much credit. This was NOT the Aurora Borealis,” a May 11 Facebook post’s caption said. 

    The post, and multiple social media posts like it, said the light display resulted from a HAARP experiment that was scheduled from May 8 to May 10. But spokespeople for HAARP and for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said those claims are baseless.

    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.)

    What is HAARP and what were they researching?

    HAARP is a research site in Gakona, Alaska, that the U.S. military created in the 1990s; the University of Alaska, Fairbanks has managed it since 2015. Researchers from around the U.S. use the site to study the ionosphere, an upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere, using a high-frequency radio transmitter. Perhaps because of its government origin, HAARP has been the subject of numerous baseless claims PolitiFact has debunked that say the weather is being manipulated.

    HAARP’s scientific campaign earlier this month had nothing to do with the aurora borealis, spokesperson Becky Lindsey said in an email to PolitiFact.

    “The experiment studied mechanisms for the detection of orbiting space debris,” Lindsey said. 

    Orbiting space debris includes human-made objects, such as old spacecraft or satellite parts. There’s about 9,000 metric tons of debris orbiting Earth, NASA said.

    “This experiment is in no way linked to the solar storm or high auroral activity seen around the globe.” Lindsey said.

    The aurora activity seen around the globe was triggered by a strong geomagnetic storm produced by the sun, Lindsey said, and was predicted well in advance by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    HAARP can create an artificial aurora — one was visible up to 300 miles from its Alaska site after a November 2023 experiment. But the energy HAARP creates is not strong enough to produce the optical display seen during a natural aurora, its website says.

    About the solar storm and the aurora borealis

    The northern lights — also known as the aurora borealis — are caused when electrons and protons collide with gases in Earth’s atmosphere, yielding colorful flashes of light that appear to shimmer in the night sky.

    There is a similar phenomenon, the aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.

    The northern lights are typically seen closer to the north pole, but were visible as far south as Mexico and Hawaii in recent days, said Bryan Brasher, a project manager at the NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

    Brasher also said many people being able to see the lights in unexpected places resulted from a rare, but perfectly natural, event, a powerful geomagnetic storm.

    The Prediction Center on May 9 issued a rare G4 geomagnetic storm watch and on May 10 said in an X post that extreme G5 conditions reached Earth, the first time that’s happened since 2003.

    Geomagnetic storms are ranked on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most powerful.

    Brasher described the extreme geomagnetic storm as a “series of coronal mass ejections — billions of tons of plasma — traveling at millions of miles an hour, colliding with Earth’s magnetosphere,” Brasher said.

    Brasher said there are dozens of magnetometer stations that measure fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field, and these fluctuations were measured worldwide because of the storm.

    A “localized radio transmitter energizing a small part of the ionosphere over Alaska is not going to have a global effect,” Brasher said.

    Brasher said scientists had the data and imagery to say what caused the solar storm and could determine it was going to hit us and when. They issued several warnings before the event, as severe solar storms can disrupt communications, navigation systems, power grids and radio and satellite operations.

    Our ruling

    A Facebook post claimed that May’s widely seen aurora borealis was caused by a HAARP experiment conducted May 8 to May 10. The HAARP experiment, however, was to find ways to detect orbital debris in space and was not related to the worldwide auroral display, which a powerful geomagnetic storm caused. HAARP can create an artificial aurora, but the energy it creates is not strong enough to produce the display seen during a natural aurora.

    We rate the claim False.

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  • False Bay dolphins caught up in False online claims

    False Bay dolphins caught up in False online claims

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    A frenetic pod of dolphins off South Africa’s coast were praised for heroic actions in an April 16 Facebook post. 

    “A whale giving birth in False Bay attracted sharks,” read the post, which included a minute-and-a-half long video showing a large whale amid countless dolphins, all leaping out of the water at random intervals. “Hundreds of dolphins appeared out of nowhere and swam in circles around her keeping the sharks away. They stayed with her until she and her baby were safe and then they escorted them both to safety.” 

    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 video isn’t fabricated. It was filmed in the Atlantic Ocean’s False Bay, between the Cape Peninsula and the Hottentots Holland Mountains. But the story of a gallant ocean rescue? That whale of a tale is inaccurate.

    (Screenshot from Facebook.)

    We searched Google for claims of dolphins defending a mother whale, because it seemed as if the video footage and story would garner news coverage. We found no reports from reputable news sources that corroborated the Facebook post’s claims. Searches for False Bay dolphins, however, showed that a pod of dolphins had been caught on video during a feeding frenzy. 

    Kade Tame captured the video near the coastal town Fish Hoek, South Africa, on March 28, 2021, according to a report by Cape Town Etc. 

    “We saw the super-pod of dolphins and decided to follow them,” Tame told the Cape Town-focused lifestyle publication. “As we were following them, the other half of the super-pod was spotted swimming in from Muizenberg beach. We then realised that it was the same pod and (they) were doing this for a reason (gathering fish). Before we knew it, there was white water everywhere and the most spectacular feeding began.”

    Around the same time as Cape Town Etc, The Daily Mail reported on the feeding frenzy and attributed the video to Tame.

    Tame told The Daily Mail that hundreds of dolphins had worked together to trap a shoal of fish in a circle.

    “With the prey fish all trapped in the middle the dolphins then began leaping around in the water in a huge fast circle spinning all the prey fish into a tight ball of sushi waiting to be eaten,” Tame said, according to The Daily Mail. 

    The dolphins created such a strong current around the fish, Tame told The Daily Mail, that Tame’s 18-foot fishing boat began spinning in circles as the dolphins began feasting. 

    “Suddenly a humpback whale arrived followed by two others and decided they wanted in on the feast and without so much as a thank you to the dolphins got stuck into the fish ball,” Tame said. “It seemed like there was enough for everyone as the dolphins and whales were feasting for about half an hour until all the food ran out and then they slowly drifted away.” 

    Tame mentioned neither a mother whale nor a newborn when he recounted the story. 

    The video shared with those 2021 news stories matched the video from the Facebook post in several places. 

    There are parts of the Facebook video that don’t perfectly match the YouTube video, but the footage shares common details, suggesting that perhaps someone captured more video from another angle that wasn’t shared with Cape Cod Etc. 

    Scientists have documented dolphins using the cooperative hunting technique Tame described to encircle and trap fish, which helps maximize a dolphin pod’s chances to feed. 

    We rate the claim that the Facebook video shows dolphins rescuing whales from sharks False.

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