An unfounded conspiracy theory of widespread election fraud claims that an election technology company called Smartmatic switched votes in the 2020 election. But Smartmatic provided ballot-marking machines to only one U.S. county.
A bogus QAnon-related claim that many of the mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election were illegitimate has spread widely on social media. But the claim is based on the faulty assumption that ballots are produced by the federal government.
President Trump has exhibited a yearslong pattern of directly espousing or leaning into conspiracy theories, often those that smear his political opponents or critics.
Social media posts are once again making false and baseless claims about high-profile Democrats being involved in child trafficking and sex crimes.
Social media accounts that boost conspiracy theories make a baseless claim that the Clintons were involved in a recent incident at the home of Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. The police report describes a domestic dispute during which Parscale threatened suicide.
Contrary to QAnon-fueled claims that a California bill would legalize pedophilia, the bill would actually standardize the rules about who is required to be on the state’s sex offender registry.
The CDC hasn’t drastically reduced the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19, but that bogus claim has been circulating widely — boosted by President Trump.
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.
A Facebook post makes the baseless claim that Bill Gates’ mother was related to Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The post also shows an image of a young man who is misidentified as Gates.
A popular post on social media pages for conspiracy theorists claims that a mobile COVID-19 testing station bears a logo that depicts an ancient deity of death. It actually shows an aardvark, which is the name of the company that designs and manufactures the trucks.