Posts circulating on social media this summer falsely claimed that Black Lives Matter activists were responsible for the beating of five elderly white people shown in the posts’ photos. But the pictures have been online for at least five years — and most early uses identify the photos as originating in South Africa.
President Donald Trump accepted his party’s nomination in a speech filled with familiar falsehoods.
The vice president accepted his party’s nomination and then delivered a speech filled with false and misleading claims..
Posts on social media repeat an error reported by Lou Dobbs on Fox Business in July, claiming that major corporations were donating large sums of money to Black Lives Matter. The companies have pledged support for racial equality initiatives, but haven’t specified Black Lives Matter as a beneficiary.
The second part of “Plandemic” — a documentary-style video that presents a sweeping conspiracy theory about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, patents and vaccines — landed on Aug. 18, spinning together many of the falsehoods about the disease that we’ve been debunking for months, plus some new misleading claims.
Contrary to claims in viral internet posts, Sen. Kamala Harris did not call former Vice President Joe Biden a “racist” or a “rapist.” Rather, she has been critical of Biden’s position on busing to integrate schools and comments he made about segregationist senators, and she has said that she believed women who accused Biden of making them feel uncomfortable.
A viral social media post is spreading the falsehood that wearing a face mask to slow the spread of COVID-19 could cause Legionnaires’ disease. But Legionnaires’ disease is caused by bacteria that festers mostly in warm, standing water, not in human saliva.
A deceptively edited video clip of Joe Biden circulating on social media cuts an hour-long speech to less than one minute, retaining only parts of statements and his pauses between words.
Old mugshots circulating on social media falsely suggest that they show 13 teachers who were recently arrested during the protests in Portland, Oregon. The photos are actually from 2017, and the posts provide no evidence that any of them are teachers.
A manipulated video clip of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shared widely on Facebook makes it appear that she slurred her words during a May press conference. She didn’t. The video clip was slowed down and spliced together.