claim
stringlengths 4
479
| label
stringclasses 3
values | origin
stringlengths 3
44.1k
| evidence
stringlengths 3
19.1k
| images
list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Says for otherwise healthy people 'experiencing mild to moderate respiratory symptoms with or without a COVID-19 diagnosis ... only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high,' but not over 103 or 104 degrees. | Contradiction | If you're a mostly healthy person who contracts the coronavirus, will letting your fever run high help get rid of it? That's what a post shared on Facebook suggests. It says: 'Passing along corona advise from a retired respiratory therapist' for 'the otherwise generally healthy population.' It lists eight recommendations, starting with: 'For people experiencing mild to moderate respiratory symptoms with or without a COVID-19 diagnosis. ... Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. ... Use common sense and don't let fever go over 103 or 104 if you got the guts.' The final recommendation is: 'If your still dying go to ER.' (Yes, it says, 'advise' instead of 'advice' and 'your' instead of 'you're' in the post.) The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We'll first note that it's best to take your medical advice from health care professionals, not from random Facebook posts. Doctors say it's true that a high temperature can help the body fight off a virus, but not enough is known about the new coronavirus to support the post's advice, and running a high fever could be dangerous. What is a fever? A fever means you have a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) or higher, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fevers are a common sign of illness, but they also play a key role in fighting infections. Generally speaking, a fever is 'basically a symptom of your immune system trying to fight the virus' Richard Watanabe, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, told PolitiFact. 'The higher temperature does make it more difficult for some viruses to survive.' The Mayo Clinic offers general tips - for otherwise healthy people and not specifically for coronavirus - on deciding whether to treat a fever or let it run its course. For example, for adults with a temperature above 102, Mayo recommends acetaminophen (Tylenol and other brands), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB) or aspirin. But it says treatment decisions also depend on age, medical history, other symptoms and other factors, not just temperature. Fever and the coronavirus Fever, along with cough and shortness of breath, is among the symptoms of COVID-19. If you have symptoms and think you have been exposed to COVID-19, call your healthcare provider, the CDC advises. CDC's Self-Checker tool can help you make decisions about seeking medical care. Mayo Clinic also offers a tool that helps you decide on seeking medical care and whether you need a COVID-19 test. If you'll be treating COVID-19 symptoms at home, get enough rest, stay well-hydrated, and take medications to relieve fever and aches and pains, Harvard Medical School says. For fever, aches and pains, the school recommends acetaminophen. But if you are taking any combination cold or flu medicine, keep track of all the ingredients and doses, and make sure not to exceed a total of 3,000 milligrams of acetaminophen per day. Mayo Clinic recommends rest and fluids, as well as cough medication, and pain relievers such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen. There have been some claims that using ibuprofen to treat coronavirus symptoms is risky. We found that some medical experts believe ibuprofen's anti-inflammatory properties could damp the immune system's ability to fight off COVID-19. But experts say this is just a theory and that there's no scientific evidence that links ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory medications with COVID-19 complications. That said, there is no rule that says you need to lower a fever with over-the-counter medication if you're feeling only mild symptoms and are not uncomfortable, Consumer Reports says in an article on COVID-19 and fevers. It lists a cold compress for sweating and blankets for chills, along with rest and liquids, as alternatives. The article says there is an argument for letting a fever run its course, because lowering a fever with medication might suppress your body's ability to fend off illness, 'but if your fever is running at or above 103 degrees, you should call a doctor. A high fever could lead to a seizure or brain damage.' Dr. Myron Cohen, professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology, and epidemiology at the University of North Carolina and director of its Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases, told PolitiFact that while there is research suggesting that fever can defend against infection, 'it is extremely difficult to relate the magnitude of fever to the severity of infection, or to demonstrate the benefits of fever for any given microorganism,' including the COVID-19 virus. The body's immune response is the most important factor in killing the virus, said Dr. Wilbur Chen, an infectious disease physician-scientist at the University of Maryland. 'The fever response is just one of the symptoms that are experienced when the immune response is revved up when fighting the virus. It is like what smoke is to fire-the point is that you are not focusing your concern on putting out the smoke; you want to put out the fire,' he said. Said Watanabe: 'The caveat here is how heat-tolerant is COVID-19? That is, as far as I am aware, an unanswered question. There are viruses that are relatively heat-tolerant, so your body's fever defense may not be effective.' | Our ruling A Facebook post advises that generally healthy people 'experiencing mild to moderate respiratory symptoms with or without a COVID-19 diagnosis' should 'let your fever run high' to kill a coronavirus. Generally speaking, a fever under 103 degrees doesn't necessarily need treatment. But that depends on other factors, such as age, underlying health conditions and other symptoms. Higher temperatures and persistent fevers are dangerous. And it isn't yet known whether a fever might help the body fight the novel coronavirus, as it does other viruses. The advice on letting a fever run high to fight the coronavirus, even with generally healthy people and mild to moderate respiratory symptoms, is too broad. We rate it Mostly False. | []
|
Says that Nikita Khrushchev said, 'Your children's children will live under communism. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright; but, we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism. | Contradiction | In a recent social media post, Nikki Haley - former governor of South Carolina and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. - attributed a nefarious-sounding quote about socialism to Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev. 'Khrushchev 60 years ago...' she wrote in the Oct. 5 Facebook post, before continuing on to provide the supposed Khrushchev quote: 'Your children's children will live under communism. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright; but, we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There is no evidence Khrushchev, who led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, ever said this about Americans, though this quote and similar ones have been attributed to Khrushchev by people including President Ronald Reagan and staunch anti-communist Ezra Taft Benson, former secretary of agriculture. PolitiFact attempted to reach out to Haley on social media and through the organization she founded, Stand For America, to see if she had evidence to back up her claim. She did not respond to our request for comment. In the Nikita Khrushchev section of a book titled 'They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions,' a version of this quote is listed: 'You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept Communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have Communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like an overripe fruit into our hands.' According to the book, the quote emerged and began circulating in the 1960s. In 1961, Reagan - who was an actor and TV host at the time - attributed a version of the quote to Khrushchev in a speech, without providing evidence of its origin: 'Three months before his last visit to this country, Nikita Khrushchev said, 'We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find they have communism.'' In the late 1960s, anti-communist Ezra Taft Benson claimed Khrushchev said these things during his 1959 visit to the United States. Benson recounted his exchange with Khrushchev in a speech he delivered in 1966: 'I have talked face-to-face with the godless Communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Khrushchev for a half day, when he visited the United States. ... 'As we talked face-to-face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under Communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his, and all other grandchildren, would live under freedom, he arrogantly declared, in substance: ''You Americans are so gullible. No you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and you find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you fall like over-ripe fruit into our hands.'' But Benson's account has been questioned because he also attributed those words to Khrushchev in a book he wrote in 1962. In that instance, Benson wrote that the Soviet leader made the statement months before his trip to the U.S., and Benson did not claim Khrushchev said them to him one-on-one. In terms of what Khrushchev said publicly, the Soviet leader's 1959 speeches in the U.S. were documented by news outlets and others. The book 'Khrushchev in America' compiled Khrushchev's speeches during the 1959 trip, and the full text is searchable online. But when PolitiFact reviewed the speeches and searched for key phrases - including 'doses of socialism' and 'Americans are so gullible' - we did not find any indication that Khrushchev said the things attributed to him in the Facebook post. | Our ruling On Facebook, Haley quoted Khrushchev as saying, 'Your children's children will live under communism. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright; but, we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism.' Apart from one anecdotal claim from an individual whose story was inconsistent, there is no evidence Khrushchev said any variation of this quote. We rate this claim False. | [
"106448-proof-33-57ec3039cbee1e5888f3d77b5d6755b2.jpeg"
]
|
Says that Nikita Khrushchev said, 'Your children's children will live under communism. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright; but, we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism. | Contradiction | In a recent social media post, Nikki Haley - former governor of South Carolina and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. - attributed a nefarious-sounding quote about socialism to Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev. 'Khrushchev 60 years ago...' she wrote in the Oct. 5 Facebook post, before continuing on to provide the supposed Khrushchev quote: 'Your children's children will live under communism. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright; but, we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There is no evidence Khrushchev, who led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, ever said this about Americans, though this quote and similar ones have been attributed to Khrushchev by people including President Ronald Reagan and staunch anti-communist Ezra Taft Benson, former secretary of agriculture. PolitiFact attempted to reach out to Haley on social media and through the organization she founded, Stand For America, to see if she had evidence to back up her claim. She did not respond to our request for comment. In the Nikita Khrushchev section of a book titled 'They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions,' a version of this quote is listed: 'You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept Communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have Communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like an overripe fruit into our hands.' According to the book, the quote emerged and began circulating in the 1960s. In 1961, Reagan - who was an actor and TV host at the time - attributed a version of the quote to Khrushchev in a speech, without providing evidence of its origin: 'Three months before his last visit to this country, Nikita Khrushchev said, 'We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find they have communism.'' In the late 1960s, anti-communist Ezra Taft Benson claimed Khrushchev said these things during his 1959 visit to the United States. Benson recounted his exchange with Khrushchev in a speech he delivered in 1966: 'I have talked face-to-face with the godless Communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Khrushchev for a half day, when he visited the United States. ... 'As we talked face-to-face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under Communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his, and all other grandchildren, would live under freedom, he arrogantly declared, in substance: ''You Americans are so gullible. No you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and you find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you fall like over-ripe fruit into our hands.'' But Benson's account has been questioned because he also attributed those words to Khrushchev in a book he wrote in 1962. In that instance, Benson wrote that the Soviet leader made the statement months before his trip to the U.S., and Benson did not claim Khrushchev said them to him one-on-one. In terms of what Khrushchev said publicly, the Soviet leader's 1959 speeches in the U.S. were documented by news outlets and others. The book 'Khrushchev in America' compiled Khrushchev's speeches during the 1959 trip, and the full text is searchable online. But when PolitiFact reviewed the speeches and searched for key phrases - including 'doses of socialism' and 'Americans are so gullible' - we did not find any indication that Khrushchev said the things attributed to him in the Facebook post. | Our ruling On Facebook, Haley quoted Khrushchev as saying, 'Your children's children will live under communism. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright; but, we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism.' Apart from one anecdotal claim from an individual whose story was inconsistent, there is no evidence Khrushchev said any variation of this quote. We rate this claim False. | [
"106448-proof-33-57ec3039cbee1e5888f3d77b5d6755b2.jpeg"
]
|
Merriam-Webster recently changed its definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include people who oppose laws that mandate vaccination. | Contradiction | Merriam-Webster defines the word 'anti-vaxxer' as 'a person who opposes vaccination or laws that mandate vaccination.' Online, some people are alleging that the dictionary powerhouse recently, sneakily changed the meaning of the word. The Russia-backed media organization RT wrote on May 12 that Merriam-Webster's online dictionary was 'again redefining language to fit a narrative, this time framing its definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include not only people who oppose vaccination, but also those who are against inoculation mandates.' Young America's Foundation tweeted that day that Merriam-Webster 'updated its definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include anyone who opposed mandatory vaccines.' A screenshot of another tweet being shared on social media claims that 'The Merriam-Webster dictionary has changed their definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include 'people who oppose laws that mandate vaccination.' Welcome to 1984, this is The Ministry of Truth.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Peter Sokolowski, editor at large of Merriam-Webster.com, told us that the entry for 'anti-vaxxer' was first added to the online dictionary in February 2018 and hasn't been revised or changed since. We found evidence to support that. An archived page of the 'anti-vaxxer' entry from Nov. 25, 2018, shows the same definition as today. That's also true for archived pages from 2019, 2020, and 2021. Two years ago, someone cited the definition in response to a Quora question about 'the exact definition of an anti-vaxxer,' and it's referenced in a November 2018 HuffPost story about a screenwriter who compared the word 'anti-vax' to a racial slur. The current definition has existed online for more than three years, since it was first added to the dictionary, according to Merriam-Webster. We rate posts that claim otherwise False. | We rate posts that claim otherwise False. | []
|
Merriam-Webster recently changed its definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include people who oppose laws that mandate vaccination. | Contradiction | Merriam-Webster defines the word 'anti-vaxxer' as 'a person who opposes vaccination or laws that mandate vaccination.' Online, some people are alleging that the dictionary powerhouse recently, sneakily changed the meaning of the word. The Russia-backed media organization RT wrote on May 12 that Merriam-Webster's online dictionary was 'again redefining language to fit a narrative, this time framing its definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include not only people who oppose vaccination, but also those who are against inoculation mandates.' Young America's Foundation tweeted that day that Merriam-Webster 'updated its definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include anyone who opposed mandatory vaccines.' A screenshot of another tweet being shared on social media claims that 'The Merriam-Webster dictionary has changed their definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include 'people who oppose laws that mandate vaccination.' Welcome to 1984, this is The Ministry of Truth.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Peter Sokolowski, editor at large of Merriam-Webster.com, told us that the entry for 'anti-vaxxer' was first added to the online dictionary in February 2018 and hasn't been revised or changed since. We found evidence to support that. An archived page of the 'anti-vaxxer' entry from Nov. 25, 2018, shows the same definition as today. That's also true for archived pages from 2019, 2020, and 2021. Two years ago, someone cited the definition in response to a Quora question about 'the exact definition of an anti-vaxxer,' and it's referenced in a November 2018 HuffPost story about a screenwriter who compared the word 'anti-vax' to a racial slur. The current definition has existed online for more than three years, since it was first added to the dictionary, according to Merriam-Webster. We rate posts that claim otherwise False. | We rate posts that claim otherwise False. | []
|
Says Biden had to take a private plane to D.C. instead of a government plane 'because they know he's not a legitimate president' and 'the military is now responsible for restoring legitimate civilian government. | Contradiction | Joe Biden was duly sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Jan. 20, despite false claims that the outgoing administration formulated a scheme with the military that would have kept Donald Trump as president for another four years. Many who believed these QAnon conspiracies have realized the so-called 'storm' was never coming. But on social media, some are still trying to hold on to the baseless conspiracy theory in the face of evidence that shows otherwise. One post shared widely on Facebook claims that Biden took a private jet to Washington D.C. for his inauguration, an indication, the post says, that Biden is not the legitimate president and that the military will soon take over the government. 'That's why they didn't send a government plane for the President-Elect,' the lengthy post says, 'because they know he is not a legitimate President and, once he was sworn in, the government became illegitimate (belligerent) and the military is now responsible for restoring legitimate civilian government.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Biden is in fact, the legitimate president, and the military is not taking over the government. Biden, once a devoted Amtrak commuter, originally planned to travel to Washington by train from Delaware, but that plan changed when it was deemed too great a security risk. So he took a private jet, which was also a break from tradition. Usually the outgoing administration provides a government plane to bring the president-elect to Washington for the inauguration. Trump, who refused to acknowledge Biden's victory until early January, opted to not attend the inauguration, becoming the first outgoing president in more than a century to skip the event. We reached out to the White House, but couldn't confirm whether the Trump administration offered to provide transportation to the Bidens. CNN reported that 'a source familiar with the matter' said the government didn't offer the Bidens a plane, but did not provide further details. Regardless, Biden's form of travel has nothing to do with the legitimacy of his presidency. The post is simply repeating variations of claims for which there is no credible evidence or factual basis. We rate it False. RELATED: Don't fall for rumors about a Trump-led military takeover, emergency alerts | We rate it False. RELATED: Don't fall for rumors about a Trump-led military takeover, emergency alerts | []
|
Only Nancy Pelosi is 'responsible for what happened at the Capitol' on Jan. 6, 'security at the Capitol is her job. | Contradiction | More than six weeks after supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, posts spread on Facebook claiming that one person was to blame: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One widely shared post claimed in all capital letters: 'ONLY ONE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CAPITOL ON 6 JANUARY - 'NANCY PELOSI' - SECURITY AT THE CAPITOL IS HER JOB!!!' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post echoes the sentiment in a Feb. 15 letter to Pelosi from four top GOP House members. It suggested the California Democrat was at least partly at fault, asserting that 'the Speaker is responsible for all operational decisions made within the House.' The post is wrong: Security at the 1.5 million-square-foot U.S. Capitol building does not fall solely to the speaker. Though Pelosi does have a role in the hierarchy overseeing security, there is no indication she controls its day-to-day operations. Responsibility for Capitol security shared Capitol security is provided by the sergeants-at-arms , who are the chief law enforcement officers for the House and Senate, in coordination with the Capitol Police, a federal law enforcement agency. The House sergeant-at-arms reports to the speaker of the House, or Pelosi at the time of the attack. The Senate sergeant-at-arms reports to the Senate majority leader; in the days leading up to and including Jan. 6, that was Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell. Security of the Capitol Complex is the direct responsibility of the four-member Capitol Police Board, which includes both sergeants-at-arms, said Jane Campbell, president and CEO of the United States Capitol Historical Society. The Jan. 6 attack On Jan. 6, a joint session of Congress was held in the House chamber to officially count the electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election. The proceedings were interrupted by a mob protesting the election results that showed Joe Biden winning over then-President Donald Trump. The attack left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer, whose death the following day is still under investigation. Former House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving resigned after the attack, as did former Senate sergeant-at-arms Michael Stenger and Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. Irving told Sund ahead of the riot that he did not want National Guard troops at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because of bad 'optics,' the Washington Post and the New York Times reported. In Feb. 23 testimony before lawmakers, Irving said that 'optics' did not play a role in his decision. He said he, Stenger and Sund agreed the intelligence they received didn't warrant the troops. The Times reported that at 1:09 p.m. on the day of the attack, minutes after protesters had burst through the barricades and began using the steel debris to assault the officers, Sund asked Irving for help from the National Guard. Irving called Sund back an hour later and said congressional leaders had approved the request; the article does not identify the leaders. But another hour passed before Defense Secretary Christopher Miller gave final approval to the request. In his testimony, Irving said he didn't recall receiving a call from Sund until shortly before 2 p.m. Sund testified that the call was made shortly after 1 p.m. The delay in deploying the National Guard was caused by communication breakdowns, inaction and confusion over who had authority to call for the National Guard, the Times analysis found. Pelosi called for an independent 9/11-type commission to review and investigate the Capitol attack. She also tapped retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré to investigate security failures that day. McConnell has blasted Pelosi's proposal as 'partisan by design.' | Our ruling A widely shared Facebook post claimed that only Pelosi is 'responsible for what happened at the Capitol' on Jan. 6, 'security at the Capitol is her job.' Responsibility for Capitol security is shared, it is not solely the responsibility of the Speaker. Security is provided by the sergeant-at-arms of the House, the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate and the Capitol Police. The House sergeant-at-arms reports to the House speaker, Pelosi. The Senate sergeant-at-arms reports to the Senate majority leader, then McConnell. The Capitol Police is overseen by a four-member board that includes both sergeants-at-arms. News reports indicate that before the attack, the House sergeant-at-arms resisted calls from the Capitol Police to bring in the National Guard for extra security at the Capitol because of 'optics,' but he said intelligence reports didn't warrant the extra security. The chain of command for Capitol security does include Pelosi, but it does not fall solely to her as this post claims. Others in the chain of command include the Senate majority leader and the Capitol police chief. We rate the claim Mostly False. | [
"106496-proof-14-6eb18d8496438f386a0d556667a992d5.jpg"
]
|
Only Nancy Pelosi is 'responsible for what happened at the Capitol' on Jan. 6, 'security at the Capitol is her job. | Contradiction | More than six weeks after supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, posts spread on Facebook claiming that one person was to blame: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One widely shared post claimed in all capital letters: 'ONLY ONE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CAPITOL ON 6 JANUARY - 'NANCY PELOSI' - SECURITY AT THE CAPITOL IS HER JOB!!!' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post echoes the sentiment in a Feb. 15 letter to Pelosi from four top GOP House members. It suggested the California Democrat was at least partly at fault, asserting that 'the Speaker is responsible for all operational decisions made within the House.' The post is wrong: Security at the 1.5 million-square-foot U.S. Capitol building does not fall solely to the speaker. Though Pelosi does have a role in the hierarchy overseeing security, there is no indication she controls its day-to-day operations. Responsibility for Capitol security shared Capitol security is provided by the sergeants-at-arms , who are the chief law enforcement officers for the House and Senate, in coordination with the Capitol Police, a federal law enforcement agency. The House sergeant-at-arms reports to the speaker of the House, or Pelosi at the time of the attack. The Senate sergeant-at-arms reports to the Senate majority leader; in the days leading up to and including Jan. 6, that was Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell. Security of the Capitol Complex is the direct responsibility of the four-member Capitol Police Board, which includes both sergeants-at-arms, said Jane Campbell, president and CEO of the United States Capitol Historical Society. The Jan. 6 attack On Jan. 6, a joint session of Congress was held in the House chamber to officially count the electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election. The proceedings were interrupted by a mob protesting the election results that showed Joe Biden winning over then-President Donald Trump. The attack left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer, whose death the following day is still under investigation. Former House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving resigned after the attack, as did former Senate sergeant-at-arms Michael Stenger and Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. Irving told Sund ahead of the riot that he did not want National Guard troops at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because of bad 'optics,' the Washington Post and the New York Times reported. In Feb. 23 testimony before lawmakers, Irving said that 'optics' did not play a role in his decision. He said he, Stenger and Sund agreed the intelligence they received didn't warrant the troops. The Times reported that at 1:09 p.m. on the day of the attack, minutes after protesters had burst through the barricades and began using the steel debris to assault the officers, Sund asked Irving for help from the National Guard. Irving called Sund back an hour later and said congressional leaders had approved the request; the article does not identify the leaders. But another hour passed before Defense Secretary Christopher Miller gave final approval to the request. In his testimony, Irving said he didn't recall receiving a call from Sund until shortly before 2 p.m. Sund testified that the call was made shortly after 1 p.m. The delay in deploying the National Guard was caused by communication breakdowns, inaction and confusion over who had authority to call for the National Guard, the Times analysis found. Pelosi called for an independent 9/11-type commission to review and investigate the Capitol attack. She also tapped retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré to investigate security failures that day. McConnell has blasted Pelosi's proposal as 'partisan by design.' | Our ruling A widely shared Facebook post claimed that only Pelosi is 'responsible for what happened at the Capitol' on Jan. 6, 'security at the Capitol is her job.' Responsibility for Capitol security is shared, it is not solely the responsibility of the Speaker. Security is provided by the sergeant-at-arms of the House, the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate and the Capitol Police. The House sergeant-at-arms reports to the House speaker, Pelosi. The Senate sergeant-at-arms reports to the Senate majority leader, then McConnell. The Capitol Police is overseen by a four-member board that includes both sergeants-at-arms. News reports indicate that before the attack, the House sergeant-at-arms resisted calls from the Capitol Police to bring in the National Guard for extra security at the Capitol because of 'optics,' but he said intelligence reports didn't warrant the extra security. The chain of command for Capitol security does include Pelosi, but it does not fall solely to her as this post claims. Others in the chain of command include the Senate majority leader and the Capitol police chief. We rate the claim Mostly False. | [
"106496-proof-14-6eb18d8496438f386a0d556667a992d5.jpg"
]
|
Only Nancy Pelosi is 'responsible for what happened at the Capitol' on Jan. 6, 'security at the Capitol is her job. | Contradiction | More than six weeks after supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, posts spread on Facebook claiming that one person was to blame: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One widely shared post claimed in all capital letters: 'ONLY ONE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CAPITOL ON 6 JANUARY - 'NANCY PELOSI' - SECURITY AT THE CAPITOL IS HER JOB!!!' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post echoes the sentiment in a Feb. 15 letter to Pelosi from four top GOP House members. It suggested the California Democrat was at least partly at fault, asserting that 'the Speaker is responsible for all operational decisions made within the House.' The post is wrong: Security at the 1.5 million-square-foot U.S. Capitol building does not fall solely to the speaker. Though Pelosi does have a role in the hierarchy overseeing security, there is no indication she controls its day-to-day operations. Responsibility for Capitol security shared Capitol security is provided by the sergeants-at-arms , who are the chief law enforcement officers for the House and Senate, in coordination with the Capitol Police, a federal law enforcement agency. The House sergeant-at-arms reports to the speaker of the House, or Pelosi at the time of the attack. The Senate sergeant-at-arms reports to the Senate majority leader; in the days leading up to and including Jan. 6, that was Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell. Security of the Capitol Complex is the direct responsibility of the four-member Capitol Police Board, which includes both sergeants-at-arms, said Jane Campbell, president and CEO of the United States Capitol Historical Society. The Jan. 6 attack On Jan. 6, a joint session of Congress was held in the House chamber to officially count the electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election. The proceedings were interrupted by a mob protesting the election results that showed Joe Biden winning over then-President Donald Trump. The attack left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer, whose death the following day is still under investigation. Former House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving resigned after the attack, as did former Senate sergeant-at-arms Michael Stenger and Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. Irving told Sund ahead of the riot that he did not want National Guard troops at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because of bad 'optics,' the Washington Post and the New York Times reported. In Feb. 23 testimony before lawmakers, Irving said that 'optics' did not play a role in his decision. He said he, Stenger and Sund agreed the intelligence they received didn't warrant the troops. The Times reported that at 1:09 p.m. on the day of the attack, minutes after protesters had burst through the barricades and began using the steel debris to assault the officers, Sund asked Irving for help from the National Guard. Irving called Sund back an hour later and said congressional leaders had approved the request; the article does not identify the leaders. But another hour passed before Defense Secretary Christopher Miller gave final approval to the request. In his testimony, Irving said he didn't recall receiving a call from Sund until shortly before 2 p.m. Sund testified that the call was made shortly after 1 p.m. The delay in deploying the National Guard was caused by communication breakdowns, inaction and confusion over who had authority to call for the National Guard, the Times analysis found. Pelosi called for an independent 9/11-type commission to review and investigate the Capitol attack. She also tapped retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré to investigate security failures that day. McConnell has blasted Pelosi's proposal as 'partisan by design.' | Our ruling A widely shared Facebook post claimed that only Pelosi is 'responsible for what happened at the Capitol' on Jan. 6, 'security at the Capitol is her job.' Responsibility for Capitol security is shared, it is not solely the responsibility of the Speaker. Security is provided by the sergeant-at-arms of the House, the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate and the Capitol Police. The House sergeant-at-arms reports to the House speaker, Pelosi. The Senate sergeant-at-arms reports to the Senate majority leader, then McConnell. The Capitol Police is overseen by a four-member board that includes both sergeants-at-arms. News reports indicate that before the attack, the House sergeant-at-arms resisted calls from the Capitol Police to bring in the National Guard for extra security at the Capitol because of 'optics,' but he said intelligence reports didn't warrant the extra security. The chain of command for Capitol security does include Pelosi, but it does not fall solely to her as this post claims. Others in the chain of command include the Senate majority leader and the Capitol police chief. We rate the claim Mostly False. | [
"106496-proof-14-6eb18d8496438f386a0d556667a992d5.jpg"
]
|
'Covid-19 means 'certificate of identification of vaccination with artificial intelligence. | Contradiction | For months, misinformation about the novel coronavirus and vaccines has spread on social media - including about the meaning of the name assigned to the disease caused by the virus: COVID-19. Back in March, we debunked a claim that it 'literally stands for Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease.' Now, a new Facebook post claims that COVID-19 means: 'Certificate of identification of vaccination with artificial intelligence.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post is wrong. The 2019 novel coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019. On Feb. 11, the World Health Organization announced that the name for the disease would be COVID-19 and the complete official name for the virus that causes the disease would be 'severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2' or 'SARS-CoV-2.' Until that point, the virus and the infection had been referred to as the '2019 novel coronavirus' or '2019-nCoV.' 'Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing,' tweeted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO. COVID-19 is an abbreviation of 'coronavirus disease 2019,' the CDC says. 'CO' stands for 'corona,' 'VI' stands for 'virus' and 'D' stands for 'disease.' The number 19 reflects the year it was identified - 2019. We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire. | We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire. | []
|
'Covid-19 means 'certificate of identification of vaccination with artificial intelligence. | Contradiction | For months, misinformation about the novel coronavirus and vaccines has spread on social media - including about the meaning of the name assigned to the disease caused by the virus: COVID-19. Back in March, we debunked a claim that it 'literally stands for Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease.' Now, a new Facebook post claims that COVID-19 means: 'Certificate of identification of vaccination with artificial intelligence.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post is wrong. The 2019 novel coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019. On Feb. 11, the World Health Organization announced that the name for the disease would be COVID-19 and the complete official name for the virus that causes the disease would be 'severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2' or 'SARS-CoV-2.' Until that point, the virus and the infection had been referred to as the '2019 novel coronavirus' or '2019-nCoV.' 'Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing,' tweeted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO. COVID-19 is an abbreviation of 'coronavirus disease 2019,' the CDC says. 'CO' stands for 'corona,' 'VI' stands for 'virus' and 'D' stands for 'disease.' The number 19 reflects the year it was identified - 2019. We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire. | We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire. | []
|
'Covid-19 means 'certificate of identification of vaccination with artificial intelligence. | Contradiction | For months, misinformation about the novel coronavirus and vaccines has spread on social media - including about the meaning of the name assigned to the disease caused by the virus: COVID-19. Back in March, we debunked a claim that it 'literally stands for Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease.' Now, a new Facebook post claims that COVID-19 means: 'Certificate of identification of vaccination with artificial intelligence.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post is wrong. The 2019 novel coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019. On Feb. 11, the World Health Organization announced that the name for the disease would be COVID-19 and the complete official name for the virus that causes the disease would be 'severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2' or 'SARS-CoV-2.' Until that point, the virus and the infection had been referred to as the '2019 novel coronavirus' or '2019-nCoV.' 'Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing,' tweeted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO. COVID-19 is an abbreviation of 'coronavirus disease 2019,' the CDC says. 'CO' stands for 'corona,' 'VI' stands for 'virus' and 'D' stands for 'disease.' The number 19 reflects the year it was identified - 2019. We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire. | We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire. | []
|
'The day Al Gore was born there were 130,000 glaciers on Earth. Today, only 130,000 remain. | Contradiction | Before the United Nations global climate summit kicked off on Nov. 29, an old meme starring climate activist and former Vice President Al Gore started to spread again online. 'The day Al Gore was born there were 130,000 glaciers on Earth,' the post says. 'Today, only 130,000 remain.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We fact-checked this back in 2019. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now. First, know that the standards for what qualifies as a glacier - a body of snow and ice that's big enough in size and mass to move under its own weight - are not universal. The U.S. Geological Survey defines them 'according to the commonly accepted guidelines in which a body of ice has an area of at least 0.1 kilometers squared, or about 25 acres.' William Colgan, a senior researcher with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, told PolitiFact in 2019 that the emerging global standard for defining a glacier is a minimum of 1 hectare, or 100 by 100 meters. That's about 2.5 acres, or roughly equivalent to the grassy area inside a 400-meter running track. How many of those were there in 1948, the year Gore was born? We don't know, Colgan said. Scientists use satellites to map glaciers and reliable satellite monitoring didn't start until the mid 1980s. We do have estimates of the total number of glaciers today. According to the Randolph Glacier Inventory, Colgan said, there are 197,654 glaciers that are at least 1 hectare, or 0.01 square kilometers. That's 67,654 more than the Facebook post says, not counting the thousands of glaciers that are 'missing,' meaning they're too small to be included in inventories. Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told PolitiFact that inventories are always changing. The numbers could increase because more glaciers are getting mapped, he said. When we looked at this claim back in 2019, one database on the center's website listed 306,865 glaciers. Bruce Raup, who works on the center's Global Land Ice Measurements from Space initiative, told PolitiFact that approximately 300,000 is still a solid number in 2021. Some glaciers are being newly counted in regions that weren't covered before, such as Iran, which has a small number of glaciers, Raup said. There 'were definitely' more than 130,000 glaciers when Gore was born, he said - they just weren't well-counted. He speculated the figure came from the World Glacier Inventory, and indeed, the inventory 'contains information for over 130,000 glaciers.' But the inventory is just a snapshot of glacier distribution in the second half of the 20th century - it's not comprehensive. 'The number of glaciers probably is actually growing over time, due to ice complexes shrinking and breaking apart into pieces' Raup said. 'But our data aren't good enough to document this well.' We rate this post False. | We rate this post False. | []
|
'The day Al Gore was born there were 130,000 glaciers on Earth. Today, only 130,000 remain. | Contradiction | Before the United Nations global climate summit kicked off on Nov. 29, an old meme starring climate activist and former Vice President Al Gore started to spread again online. 'The day Al Gore was born there were 130,000 glaciers on Earth,' the post says. 'Today, only 130,000 remain.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We fact-checked this back in 2019. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now. First, know that the standards for what qualifies as a glacier - a body of snow and ice that's big enough in size and mass to move under its own weight - are not universal. The U.S. Geological Survey defines them 'according to the commonly accepted guidelines in which a body of ice has an area of at least 0.1 kilometers squared, or about 25 acres.' William Colgan, a senior researcher with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, told PolitiFact in 2019 that the emerging global standard for defining a glacier is a minimum of 1 hectare, or 100 by 100 meters. That's about 2.5 acres, or roughly equivalent to the grassy area inside a 400-meter running track. How many of those were there in 1948, the year Gore was born? We don't know, Colgan said. Scientists use satellites to map glaciers and reliable satellite monitoring didn't start until the mid 1980s. We do have estimates of the total number of glaciers today. According to the Randolph Glacier Inventory, Colgan said, there are 197,654 glaciers that are at least 1 hectare, or 0.01 square kilometers. That's 67,654 more than the Facebook post says, not counting the thousands of glaciers that are 'missing,' meaning they're too small to be included in inventories. Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told PolitiFact that inventories are always changing. The numbers could increase because more glaciers are getting mapped, he said. When we looked at this claim back in 2019, one database on the center's website listed 306,865 glaciers. Bruce Raup, who works on the center's Global Land Ice Measurements from Space initiative, told PolitiFact that approximately 300,000 is still a solid number in 2021. Some glaciers are being newly counted in regions that weren't covered before, such as Iran, which has a small number of glaciers, Raup said. There 'were definitely' more than 130,000 glaciers when Gore was born, he said - they just weren't well-counted. He speculated the figure came from the World Glacier Inventory, and indeed, the inventory 'contains information for over 130,000 glaciers.' But the inventory is just a snapshot of glacier distribution in the second half of the 20th century - it's not comprehensive. 'The number of glaciers probably is actually growing over time, due to ice complexes shrinking and breaking apart into pieces' Raup said. 'But our data aren't good enough to document this well.' We rate this post False. | We rate this post False. | []
|
Product shortages are manufactured; goods are stuck in warehouses. | Contradiction | A TikTok video that has been viewed nearly a half-million times claims that there is no supply shortage, and that problems getting goods to American consumers are manufactured. In a clip from 'The Stew Peters Show,' a conservative internet broadcast, a man claiming to work in the Port of Los Angeles says that the port workers have broken productivity records, and there is no shortage of goods. 'The goods are in the warehouses,' said the man, whose identity was concealed. 'There is no shortage.' Host Stew Peters asks him if the shortage is manufactured. 'It has to be,' the man says. 'There's no explanation. Because when we're working this hard getting that much tonnage out, that means it's going somewhere. But if it's not getting to the people it's stopping somewhere. I think it's stopping at the ... supply warehouses, that's the only place it could be.' TikTok identified this video, which was posted on Oct. 24, as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact's partnership with TikTok.) The supply chain problems are real, resulting in empty store shelves and predictions that holiday shoppers will have trouble finding every gift on their list. There's no evidence that the crisis is fabricated. And despite what the man in the video claims, there are explanations for these problems that go beyond what may be happening at one seaport. The problems getting goods to consumers have been the subject of congressional hearings and presidential announcements. The causes are complex and multifaceted, according to reports from the ground at these ports, explanations from people who work along the supply chain and information from experts. In a widely shared Medium essay, union truck driver Ryan Johnson explains several problems in the supply chain, based on his experience. He describes how long wait times for truck drivers at the ports to pick up freight discourage independent drivers, who are not paid by the hour, from going to the ports at all, because it is not cost-effective. A shortage of warehouse workers means that it takes longer to make pickups at warehouses - three or four hours instead of 20 or 30 minutes. 'It means that as a freight driver, I cannot pick up as much freight in a day as I used to, and since I can't get as much freight on my truck, the whole supply chain is backed up,' wrote Johnson, who lives in Washington state and has been a truck driver for 20 years. 'Freight simply isn't moving.' Debra Glassman, a professor at the University of Washington who teaches finance and business economics, said that the cargo unloading at the port described in the video is just one link in the supply chain. 'It is entirely possible that some goods have moved into warehouses and are stuck there waiting for transportation to retailers or customers,' Glassman said. 'There is a shortage of truckers that has slowed transportation and delivery. This is a real problem, not a 'manufactured' one. There are a lot of reasons for the trucker shortage, including an aging workforce, difficult working conditions, and relatively low pay. So my conclusion is that goods could be stuck in warehouses for genuine supply chain reasons.' According to an executive at a Minnesota candy manufacturer, a shortage of trained and available workers is the biggest disruption to her supply chain, but not the only one. Christine Lantinen, owner of Maud Borup Inc., told federal lawmakers in October that the cost to ship a standard 40-foot shipping container rose from about $4,300 to $30,000 between August 2020 and August 2021. Patrick Penfield, professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, said the supply chain became more complex and strained as companies tried to cut costs. Now, we have what Penfield considers a 'global supply chain in crisis.' In an interview on C-SPAN, Penfield said there is a shortage of base materials, such as chemicals and semiconductor chips, and lead times are getting longer. For example, shipping goods from China used to take 30 or 35 days, and now takes 73 days. Those delays are compounded by congestion at the ports, ships waiting to be unloaded, a lack of warehouse space, and a worker shortage. There were problems before the pandemic, Penfield said, but the pandemic has been the big contributor to the current problems, along with weather events and cyber attacks. The problems are not confined to the United States. Daniel Maffei, chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, told a congressional panel in June that congestion, reliability and cost issues are problems worldwide for ports, businesses and transportation networks linked to oceans. Maffei also said that while shipping containers stacked high at ports make for dramatic photos, there are problems throughout the supply chain. 'Outdated infrastructure, equipment and labor shortages, railroad issues, and limited warehousing all diminish our capacity to move containers,' he said. PolitiFact looked at several claims that aim to assign blame for the supply shortages, and found that many interconnecting factors affect the supply chain. The coronavirus is restricting capacity at Asian factories, major weather events like hurricanes are disrupting shipping, and shipping containers and raw materials are in short supply. Retirements have also led to a shortage of truck drivers. We reached out to 'The Stew Peters Show,' and a representative declined to provide evidence for this claim. | Our ruling A TikTok video claims that workers at ports efficiently getting goods off of container ships shows that the shortages of goods are manufactured. Experts and people who work in industry said that there are real problems throughout the supply chain, worldwide. While some goods may be sitting in warehouses because they are not being processed quickly, the issues disrupting the flow of goods to consumers go beyond that to include labor shortages at various points in the supply chain, as well as a shortage of raw materials and rising transportation prices. This is not a manufactured crisis. We rate this claim Pants on Fire! | [
"106515-proof-36-060a09abab6811728af1e65751fb7457.jpg"
]
|
Product shortages are manufactured; goods are stuck in warehouses. | Contradiction | A TikTok video that has been viewed nearly a half-million times claims that there is no supply shortage, and that problems getting goods to American consumers are manufactured. In a clip from 'The Stew Peters Show,' a conservative internet broadcast, a man claiming to work in the Port of Los Angeles says that the port workers have broken productivity records, and there is no shortage of goods. 'The goods are in the warehouses,' said the man, whose identity was concealed. 'There is no shortage.' Host Stew Peters asks him if the shortage is manufactured. 'It has to be,' the man says. 'There's no explanation. Because when we're working this hard getting that much tonnage out, that means it's going somewhere. But if it's not getting to the people it's stopping somewhere. I think it's stopping at the ... supply warehouses, that's the only place it could be.' TikTok identified this video, which was posted on Oct. 24, as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact's partnership with TikTok.) The supply chain problems are real, resulting in empty store shelves and predictions that holiday shoppers will have trouble finding every gift on their list. There's no evidence that the crisis is fabricated. And despite what the man in the video claims, there are explanations for these problems that go beyond what may be happening at one seaport. The problems getting goods to consumers have been the subject of congressional hearings and presidential announcements. The causes are complex and multifaceted, according to reports from the ground at these ports, explanations from people who work along the supply chain and information from experts. In a widely shared Medium essay, union truck driver Ryan Johnson explains several problems in the supply chain, based on his experience. He describes how long wait times for truck drivers at the ports to pick up freight discourage independent drivers, who are not paid by the hour, from going to the ports at all, because it is not cost-effective. A shortage of warehouse workers means that it takes longer to make pickups at warehouses - three or four hours instead of 20 or 30 minutes. 'It means that as a freight driver, I cannot pick up as much freight in a day as I used to, and since I can't get as much freight on my truck, the whole supply chain is backed up,' wrote Johnson, who lives in Washington state and has been a truck driver for 20 years. 'Freight simply isn't moving.' Debra Glassman, a professor at the University of Washington who teaches finance and business economics, said that the cargo unloading at the port described in the video is just one link in the supply chain. 'It is entirely possible that some goods have moved into warehouses and are stuck there waiting for transportation to retailers or customers,' Glassman said. 'There is a shortage of truckers that has slowed transportation and delivery. This is a real problem, not a 'manufactured' one. There are a lot of reasons for the trucker shortage, including an aging workforce, difficult working conditions, and relatively low pay. So my conclusion is that goods could be stuck in warehouses for genuine supply chain reasons.' According to an executive at a Minnesota candy manufacturer, a shortage of trained and available workers is the biggest disruption to her supply chain, but not the only one. Christine Lantinen, owner of Maud Borup Inc., told federal lawmakers in October that the cost to ship a standard 40-foot shipping container rose from about $4,300 to $30,000 between August 2020 and August 2021. Patrick Penfield, professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, said the supply chain became more complex and strained as companies tried to cut costs. Now, we have what Penfield considers a 'global supply chain in crisis.' In an interview on C-SPAN, Penfield said there is a shortage of base materials, such as chemicals and semiconductor chips, and lead times are getting longer. For example, shipping goods from China used to take 30 or 35 days, and now takes 73 days. Those delays are compounded by congestion at the ports, ships waiting to be unloaded, a lack of warehouse space, and a worker shortage. There were problems before the pandemic, Penfield said, but the pandemic has been the big contributor to the current problems, along with weather events and cyber attacks. The problems are not confined to the United States. Daniel Maffei, chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, told a congressional panel in June that congestion, reliability and cost issues are problems worldwide for ports, businesses and transportation networks linked to oceans. Maffei also said that while shipping containers stacked high at ports make for dramatic photos, there are problems throughout the supply chain. 'Outdated infrastructure, equipment and labor shortages, railroad issues, and limited warehousing all diminish our capacity to move containers,' he said. PolitiFact looked at several claims that aim to assign blame for the supply shortages, and found that many interconnecting factors affect the supply chain. The coronavirus is restricting capacity at Asian factories, major weather events like hurricanes are disrupting shipping, and shipping containers and raw materials are in short supply. Retirements have also led to a shortage of truck drivers. We reached out to 'The Stew Peters Show,' and a representative declined to provide evidence for this claim. | Our ruling A TikTok video claims that workers at ports efficiently getting goods off of container ships shows that the shortages of goods are manufactured. Experts and people who work in industry said that there are real problems throughout the supply chain, worldwide. While some goods may be sitting in warehouses because they are not being processed quickly, the issues disrupting the flow of goods to consumers go beyond that to include labor shortages at various points in the supply chain, as well as a shortage of raw materials and rising transportation prices. This is not a manufactured crisis. We rate this claim Pants on Fire! | [
"106515-proof-36-060a09abab6811728af1e65751fb7457.jpg"
]
|
A man who stormed the U.S. Capitol in a horned fur cap is an 'Antifa thug. | Contradiction | Hours after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, several of his allies in Congress and the media baselessly claimed anti-fascist provacateurs were to blame for the violence. Some suggested, without evidence, that the crowd backing Trump's efforts to overturn the election was infiltrated by antifa. Antifa stands for 'anti-fascist,' and it is not a group but a broad coalition of activists. Others focused on specific protesters who forced their way inside the Capitol and were shown in photographs, such as a bare-chested man who wore face paint and a horned fur cap. 'These are NOT Trump supporters,' said one Jan. 6 Facebook post. 'Antifa THUGS.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But the mysterious man in horns is not antifa-aligned. The man, Jake Angeli, supports Trump and is a well-known supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory. He goes by the moniker, 'Q Shaman,' and he told the Arizona Republic he uses his unique outfit to stand out. Poynter reported that in December, Angeli launched an online crowdfunding campaign to fund his participation in pro-Trump events. The Arizona Republic described him as 'a QAnon supporter who has been a fixture at Arizona right-wing political rallies over the past year.' The Associated Press reported that he was also seen in the same signature headwear at a pro-Trump rally Nov. 7 in Phoenix. Jake Angeli speaks at a rally outside the Maricopa County Recorder's Office on Nov. 7, 2020, in Phoenix. (AP) PolitiFact's review of Angeli's private Facebook page showed photos and posts that indicated support for QAnon and Trump. (Followers of QAnon believe Trump is leading a fight against a global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.) False claims linking Angeli and other people who mobbed the Capitol to antifa took off online in the hours after the event. An NBC News analysis identified thousands of tweets that accused antifa members of 'posing' as Trump supporters. Angeli responded on Twitter when Lin Wood, an attorney who has filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the presidential election, posted photos of Angeli and claimed he is an antifa activist. The Daily Beast's Will Sommer, who covers QAnon closely, highlighted the exchange. 'Mr. Wood. I am not antifa or blm,' Angeli's tweet said. 'I'm a Qanon & digital soldier. My name is Jake & I marched with the police & fought against BLM & ANTIFA in PHX.' There remains no credible evidence that the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol were antifa activists. Video and photos from the scene show many people wearing and waving Trump-branded paraphernalia and flags. Trump spoke to a rally of supporters in Washington hours before the violence erupted, and he had urged them to come to the city on Jan. 6 and back his efforts to overturn the election. He encouraged the rally to march to Congress and suggested he'd join them. He did not. | Our ruling A Facebook post said a man who was photographed storming the U.S. Capitol in a horned fur cap is an 'Antifa thug.' The man is a known QAnon supporter who has backed Trump. We rate this post Pants on Fire! RELATED: A day of crisis at the US Capitol, fact-checked RELATED: Is this a coup? Here's some history and context to help you decide | [
"106582-proof-31-1bb20fa217daa5b73fc8b133022c8c6e.jpg"
]
|
Says a photo shows an elephant carrying a lion cub to a pool of water so it wouldn't die. | Contradiction | 'It was considered the best photo of this century,' the best photo's caption grandly declares. 'A lioness and her cub were crossing the savannah but the heat was excessive and the cub was in great difficulty walking. An elephant realized that the cub would die and carried him in his trunk to a pool of water walking beside his mother. And we call them wild animals.' For a couple years now, the image, which shows a lion cub tucked into an elephant's trunk as the animal walks alongside a lioness, has been shared widely on Facebook. This Feb. 17 post, among others, was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) That's because it's not the best photo of the century, but maybe one of the best Photoshop jobs of the week. A Twitter account dedicated to helping people spot wildlife at Kruger National Park in South Africa posted the image on April 1, 2018, with this caption: 'We were following a lioness carrying her cub & she was getting really tired. An elephant showed up wanting to help the lioness. The elephant put its trunk down, the cub jumped up & the elephant carried the lion cub!! S28, 3km from S entrance.' It also says, 'Tinged by Sloof Lirpa,' crediting the person responsible for reporting the sighting. But 'Sloof Lirpa' is 'April Fools' backwards. A post published on the account's website the following day explained that the photo is indeed a joke. 'We had to spend hours perfecting the Photoshop,' it says. 'We wanted it to be good enough to fool most, yet obvious enough to cause the 'Fake' or 'Photoshopped' comments to come through.' Not everyone got the joke, of course, and people continue to post the image on Facebook believing it's real. We rate it Pants on Fire!. | Not everyone got the joke, of course, and people continue to post the image on Facebook believing it's real. We rate it Pants on Fire!. | []
|
Anthony Fauci was on the Clinton Foundation board for 20 years and 'currently serves on Gates Foundation. | Contradiction | Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He wasn't on Microsoft's board of directors - a claim we recently debunked. But more misinformation abounds, and one Facebook post pads his resume with some new positions. 'Whoa!' the May 12 Facebook post says. 'Dr Fauci was on Clinton Foundation Board for 20 yrs? Currently serves on Gates Foundation? #InvestigateFauci' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Brian Cookstra, a spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation, told PolitiFact that Fauci has never served on the board in any capacity. He's not listed among the current board members, which you can see here, nor did we find any credible news stories or sources online that identify him as a former board member. Fauci also is not listed among the leadership team members on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website, including the executive leadership team headed by Bill and Melinda Gates and the global health division. He also isn't listed on the Scientific Advisory Committee. From 2003-10 Fauci, among 21 other scientists, served on a Gates Foundation scientific board to 'guide and direct' a new initiative to 'identify critical scientific challenges in global health and increase research on diseases that cause millions of deaths in the developing world.' The Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative was aimed at AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and Gates announced at the time that it would be administered by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, which agreed to provide scientific advice and support. The board that Fauci belonged to was formed to determine what 'grand challenges' in global health could help thwart disease if they were solved. The initiative then provided grants to scientists around the world to look for solutions to the challenges. But we found nothing to support what the Facebook post alleges. We rate it False. | We rate it False. | [
"106605-proof-10-dfacc573a7d9cfe62a3782bed176d264.jpg"
]
|
Anthony Fauci was on the Clinton Foundation board for 20 years and 'currently serves on Gates Foundation. | Contradiction | Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He wasn't on Microsoft's board of directors - a claim we recently debunked. But more misinformation abounds, and one Facebook post pads his resume with some new positions. 'Whoa!' the May 12 Facebook post says. 'Dr Fauci was on Clinton Foundation Board for 20 yrs? Currently serves on Gates Foundation? #InvestigateFauci' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Brian Cookstra, a spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation, told PolitiFact that Fauci has never served on the board in any capacity. He's not listed among the current board members, which you can see here, nor did we find any credible news stories or sources online that identify him as a former board member. Fauci also is not listed among the leadership team members on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website, including the executive leadership team headed by Bill and Melinda Gates and the global health division. He also isn't listed on the Scientific Advisory Committee. From 2003-10 Fauci, among 21 other scientists, served on a Gates Foundation scientific board to 'guide and direct' a new initiative to 'identify critical scientific challenges in global health and increase research on diseases that cause millions of deaths in the developing world.' The Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative was aimed at AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and Gates announced at the time that it would be administered by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, which agreed to provide scientific advice and support. The board that Fauci belonged to was formed to determine what 'grand challenges' in global health could help thwart disease if they were solved. The initiative then provided grants to scientists around the world to look for solutions to the challenges. But we found nothing to support what the Facebook post alleges. We rate it False. | We rate it False. | [
"106605-proof-10-dfacc573a7d9cfe62a3782bed176d264.jpg"
]
|
'Breaking: UK Prepares For Full Lockdown After Hundreds Of New Cases - Wuhan Super Virus Updates. | Contradiction | A split-screen video with a chyron broadcasting 'Breaking News' exacerbates fears about the 2019 novel coronavirus, circulating mistruths about the state of the virus' spread through the United Kingdom. The 22-minute video post being shared on Facebook starts by simultaneously rolling three videos under this headline: 'Breaking: UK Prepares For Full Lockdown After Hundreds Of New Cases - Wuhan Super Virus Updates.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It's not clear where the video clips were shot, but they show a variety of disturbing scenes, including what appear to be four people in hazmat suits loading something into a van; an older Asian man being handcuffed and led away by what appear to be two police officers wearing medical face masks; and a younger Asian man outdoors wearing only underwear being led away by two men wearing uniforms. As the video clips play, a male narrator says officials in the U.K. - which comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - are desperately searching for hundreds of coronavirus cases. He goes on to share more conspiracy theories about the virus' origins. But the data doesn't indicate any such panic in the U.K. As of Feb. 24, 2020: The World Health Organization reported only nine confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.K. (British officials say the number has risen to 13.) Eight of the people have been treated and discharged, The Telegraph, a British news organization reported. The risk of catching the coronavirus in the U.K. is low, according to the country's National Health Service. British officials say they are monitoring airports with direct flights from China, and are recommending movement restrictions to residents only if they have been to Wuhan recently or have been to China or nearby countries and have respiratory symptoms. The post was made by STFN Reloaded. We have also rated as False a claim by that group that the coronavirus 'causes sudden death syndrome.' And the Australian Associated Press said an STFN Reloaded claim that the coronavirus came from a Chinese lab is false. | Our ruling A Facebook post says: 'Breaking: UK Prepares For Full Lockdown After Hundreds Of New Cases - Wuhan Super Virus Updates.' There are fewer than 10 coronavirus cases in the United Kingdom and no signs that travel or other aspects of life in Britain have been shut down by the virus. We rate the statement False. | []
|
'Breaking: UK Prepares For Full Lockdown After Hundreds Of New Cases - Wuhan Super Virus Updates. | Contradiction | A split-screen video with a chyron broadcasting 'Breaking News' exacerbates fears about the 2019 novel coronavirus, circulating mistruths about the state of the virus' spread through the United Kingdom. The 22-minute video post being shared on Facebook starts by simultaneously rolling three videos under this headline: 'Breaking: UK Prepares For Full Lockdown After Hundreds Of New Cases - Wuhan Super Virus Updates.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It's not clear where the video clips were shot, but they show a variety of disturbing scenes, including what appear to be four people in hazmat suits loading something into a van; an older Asian man being handcuffed and led away by what appear to be two police officers wearing medical face masks; and a younger Asian man outdoors wearing only underwear being led away by two men wearing uniforms. As the video clips play, a male narrator says officials in the U.K. - which comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - are desperately searching for hundreds of coronavirus cases. He goes on to share more conspiracy theories about the virus' origins. But the data doesn't indicate any such panic in the U.K. As of Feb. 24, 2020: The World Health Organization reported only nine confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.K. (British officials say the number has risen to 13.) Eight of the people have been treated and discharged, The Telegraph, a British news organization reported. The risk of catching the coronavirus in the U.K. is low, according to the country's National Health Service. British officials say they are monitoring airports with direct flights from China, and are recommending movement restrictions to residents only if they have been to Wuhan recently or have been to China or nearby countries and have respiratory symptoms. The post was made by STFN Reloaded. We have also rated as False a claim by that group that the coronavirus 'causes sudden death syndrome.' And the Australian Associated Press said an STFN Reloaded claim that the coronavirus came from a Chinese lab is false. | Our ruling A Facebook post says: 'Breaking: UK Prepares For Full Lockdown After Hundreds Of New Cases - Wuhan Super Virus Updates.' There are fewer than 10 coronavirus cases in the United Kingdom and no signs that travel or other aspects of life in Britain have been shut down by the virus. We rate the statement False. | []
|
'Joe Biden puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent. | Contradiction | On his third day in office, some two weeks after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden ordered a federal assessment of the threat posed by domestic violent extremism. On March 17, the federal government released an unclassified summary of the assessment, prompting this headline widely shared on Facebook: 'Joe Biden puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent.'' The headline was shared in posts by the Illinois Family Institute, the Facebook group Pro-life Politics, and Ohio Value Voters, Inc. It was surfaced to PolitiFact by VineSight, a firm that tracks online misinformation. The headline distorts what the assessment really found. The intelligence summary says that among the various types of domestic violent extremists are those with 'ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs.' In other words, the report doesn't say that anti-abortion groups - or abortion-rights groups, for that matter - are domestic extremists. Rather, it says that some groups that are identified as domestic extremists have ideological agendas for or against abortion. Domestic violent extremists The headline shared on Facebook is from an article on LifeNews.com. That article describes another article from the Christian Post about the summary report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The four-page report, titled 'Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,' begins by stating 'that domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.' A domestic violent extremist is defined 'as an individual based and operating primarily in the United States without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power and who seeks to further political or social goals wholly or in part through unlawful acts of force or violence.' The report says that lone offenders or small cells of domestic violent extremists 'adhering to a diverse set of violent extremist ideologies' are more likely to carry out violent attacks than organizations that 'allegedly advocate a DVE ideology.' It also says that 'racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and militia violent extremists' present the most lethal threats. The report concludes with a brief mention of abortion-related groups in its listing of five categories of domestic violent extremists: Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists Anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists Animal rights/environmental violent extremists Abortion-related violent extremists - that is, domestic violent extremists 'with ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs' All other domestic terrorism threats | Our ruling A headline widely shared on Facebook claims that Biden 'puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent.'' An assessment ordered by Biden on the threat posed by domestic violent extremism says that one category of so-called domestic violent extremists are those that have 'ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs.' It does not label anti-abortion groups generally as domestic violent extremists, or as violent. We rate the post Mostly False. | [
"106615-proof-21-2e9f27e8bb53f82852ada3f36c00f83b.jpg"
]
|
'Joe Biden puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent. | Contradiction | On his third day in office, some two weeks after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden ordered a federal assessment of the threat posed by domestic violent extremism. On March 17, the federal government released an unclassified summary of the assessment, prompting this headline widely shared on Facebook: 'Joe Biden puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent.'' The headline was shared in posts by the Illinois Family Institute, the Facebook group Pro-life Politics, and Ohio Value Voters, Inc. It was surfaced to PolitiFact by VineSight, a firm that tracks online misinformation. The headline distorts what the assessment really found. The intelligence summary says that among the various types of domestic violent extremists are those with 'ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs.' In other words, the report doesn't say that anti-abortion groups - or abortion-rights groups, for that matter - are domestic extremists. Rather, it says that some groups that are identified as domestic extremists have ideological agendas for or against abortion. Domestic violent extremists The headline shared on Facebook is from an article on LifeNews.com. That article describes another article from the Christian Post about the summary report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The four-page report, titled 'Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,' begins by stating 'that domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.' A domestic violent extremist is defined 'as an individual based and operating primarily in the United States without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power and who seeks to further political or social goals wholly or in part through unlawful acts of force or violence.' The report says that lone offenders or small cells of domestic violent extremists 'adhering to a diverse set of violent extremist ideologies' are more likely to carry out violent attacks than organizations that 'allegedly advocate a DVE ideology.' It also says that 'racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and militia violent extremists' present the most lethal threats. The report concludes with a brief mention of abortion-related groups in its listing of five categories of domestic violent extremists: Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists Anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists Animal rights/environmental violent extremists Abortion-related violent extremists - that is, domestic violent extremists 'with ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs' All other domestic terrorism threats | Our ruling A headline widely shared on Facebook claims that Biden 'puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent.'' An assessment ordered by Biden on the threat posed by domestic violent extremism says that one category of so-called domestic violent extremists are those that have 'ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs.' It does not label anti-abortion groups generally as domestic violent extremists, or as violent. We rate the post Mostly False. | [
"106615-proof-21-2e9f27e8bb53f82852ada3f36c00f83b.jpg"
]
|
'Joe Biden puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent. | Contradiction | On his third day in office, some two weeks after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden ordered a federal assessment of the threat posed by domestic violent extremism. On March 17, the federal government released an unclassified summary of the assessment, prompting this headline widely shared on Facebook: 'Joe Biden puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent.'' The headline was shared in posts by the Illinois Family Institute, the Facebook group Pro-life Politics, and Ohio Value Voters, Inc. It was surfaced to PolitiFact by VineSight, a firm that tracks online misinformation. The headline distorts what the assessment really found. The intelligence summary says that among the various types of domestic violent extremists are those with 'ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs.' In other words, the report doesn't say that anti-abortion groups - or abortion-rights groups, for that matter - are domestic extremists. Rather, it says that some groups that are identified as domestic extremists have ideological agendas for or against abortion. Domestic violent extremists The headline shared on Facebook is from an article on LifeNews.com. That article describes another article from the Christian Post about the summary report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The four-page report, titled 'Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,' begins by stating 'that domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.' A domestic violent extremist is defined 'as an individual based and operating primarily in the United States without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power and who seeks to further political or social goals wholly or in part through unlawful acts of force or violence.' The report says that lone offenders or small cells of domestic violent extremists 'adhering to a diverse set of violent extremist ideologies' are more likely to carry out violent attacks than organizations that 'allegedly advocate a DVE ideology.' It also says that 'racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and militia violent extremists' present the most lethal threats. The report concludes with a brief mention of abortion-related groups in its listing of five categories of domestic violent extremists: Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists Anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists Animal rights/environmental violent extremists Abortion-related violent extremists - that is, domestic violent extremists 'with ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs' All other domestic terrorism threats | Our ruling A headline widely shared on Facebook claims that Biden 'puts pro-life groups on domestic extremist list, calls pro-life people 'violent.'' An assessment ordered by Biden on the threat posed by domestic violent extremism says that one category of so-called domestic violent extremists are those that have 'ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs.' It does not label anti-abortion groups generally as domestic violent extremists, or as violent. We rate the post Mostly False. | [
"106615-proof-21-2e9f27e8bb53f82852ada3f36c00f83b.jpg"
]
|
'If Biden wins the election, there are people out there planning on mass murdering poc and lbgtq+ people. Please stay inside during the election and a few days after. | Contradiction | The Election Day warning went viral on all the social media platforms. It was a frightening admonition to 'stay inside on Election Day and a few days after' because people are planning to 'mass murder' people of color and those within the LGBTQ community if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins against President Donald Trump. The posts give an appearance of being well-intentioned, urging people in those groups to stay home and, in some versions, to 'stay safe.' They were flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) These broad claims have the characteristics of disinformation intended to spread fear and discourage certain people from going out to vote. So while it may be packaged as a word of caution, experts say some social media users are unknowingly sharing a false message. (Screenshot from Twitter) Federal officials have warned some law enforcement agencies to be aware of legitimate threats of violence related to the election. But these frightening, non-specific social media claims that assert targeted mass murder is brewing seemed aimed to suppress the vote, said Paul Barrett, author of the paper, 'Disinformation and the 2020 Election: How the Social Media Industry Should Prepare.' 'People should not just be suspicious of such posts; they should reject them as obviously false and designed exclusively to frighten social media users and keep them from voting,' said Barrett, also deputy director of New York University's Center for Business and Human Rights. A PolitiFact analysis of the evolution of the message about Trump supporters 'mass murdering' people suggests it originated on Snapchat and TikTok before moving to Twitter just after midnight on Nov. 2. The first tweet we could find with an image of that message was published around 12:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. The account that posted it was created in June and was quote-tweeting another post that included an image of what looked like screenshots of several similar messages on platforms like Snapchat and TikTok. 'If Biden wins the election, there are people out there planning on mass murdering poc and lgbtq+ people,' says text in the image. 'Please stay inside during the election and a few days after. It's not just a theory, there are leaked screenshots of group chats, Discord chats and private Facebook groups.' We could find none of that material to support the claim in the post. Subsequent versions of the message claimed without evidence that the Proud Boys, a far-right men's organization with a history of violent confrontations, was planning to mass murder people if Biden wins the election. Many of the tweets we found repeat the same language offering a trigger warning. Darren Linvill, a disinformation expert and associate professor at Clemson University, told PolitiFact the tweets appear to have originated among teenagers in the Philippines. 'I think this is all teen drama,' he said. 'We looked at several accounts, and they all seem legitimate. There is a lot of cutting and pasting, and while that is concerning it isn't that uncommon.' From Twitter, the message appears to have jumped to Instagram, where the same screenshot warning was first posted around noon on Nov. 2. Similar posts have received hundreds of thousands of likes and comments, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. Sarah Oates, professor and senior scholar in journalism at the University of Maryland, specializes in studying Russian disinformation. She said it's hard to know at this point whether the posts are being spread by people who want to intimidate individuals or whether they're sincerely worried. 'There are certainly reasons for people in these groups to feel threatened and they have been the victims of hate speech, attacks, and murder due to their status,' she said. 'People should look at the material and really consider - by sharing this am I sharing useful information or am I contributing to a campaign of terror against a marginalized group?' RELATED: What you need to know about Election Day misinformation 'Voter intimidation has partially moved online and especially on Election Day, it is very prudent to be very suspicious about the trustworthiness of any communications suggesting that eligible voters should stay away from the polling stations,' said Niklas Myhr, a marketing and economics professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., who specializes in social media. 'Some of these posts can also be discarded based on simple logic. Why should you not go and vote if these bad things are supposed to happen only after the results have been tallied?' We reached out on the afternoon of Nov. 3 to the FBI and the Department of Justice about the posts. We didn't get a reply from the Justice Department and the FBI said it had no comment. We could find no evidence that Trump supporters or the Proud Boys are planning mass murder if Biden wins the election. | Our ruling A series of social media posts claim that Trump supporters and right-wing groups are 'planning on mass murdering poc and lgbtq+ people' if Biden wins the election. There is no evidence to support that. The claim appears to be a viral social media rumor, and experts say they show hallmarks of being part of a campaign to suppress the vote. While law enforcement agencies nationwide are bracing for post-election unrest, we could find no credible threats of 'mass murder.' Without additional evidence, the claim is inaccurate. We rate it False. This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more. | [
"106650-proof-01-d378b7c2932345d7915013bb513bf069.jpg"
]
|
'If Biden wins the election, there are people out there planning on mass murdering poc and lbgtq+ people. Please stay inside during the election and a few days after. | Contradiction | The Election Day warning went viral on all the social media platforms. It was a frightening admonition to 'stay inside on Election Day and a few days after' because people are planning to 'mass murder' people of color and those within the LGBTQ community if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins against President Donald Trump. The posts give an appearance of being well-intentioned, urging people in those groups to stay home and, in some versions, to 'stay safe.' They were flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) These broad claims have the characteristics of disinformation intended to spread fear and discourage certain people from going out to vote. So while it may be packaged as a word of caution, experts say some social media users are unknowingly sharing a false message. (Screenshot from Twitter) Federal officials have warned some law enforcement agencies to be aware of legitimate threats of violence related to the election. But these frightening, non-specific social media claims that assert targeted mass murder is brewing seemed aimed to suppress the vote, said Paul Barrett, author of the paper, 'Disinformation and the 2020 Election: How the Social Media Industry Should Prepare.' 'People should not just be suspicious of such posts; they should reject them as obviously false and designed exclusively to frighten social media users and keep them from voting,' said Barrett, also deputy director of New York University's Center for Business and Human Rights. A PolitiFact analysis of the evolution of the message about Trump supporters 'mass murdering' people suggests it originated on Snapchat and TikTok before moving to Twitter just after midnight on Nov. 2. The first tweet we could find with an image of that message was published around 12:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. The account that posted it was created in June and was quote-tweeting another post that included an image of what looked like screenshots of several similar messages on platforms like Snapchat and TikTok. 'If Biden wins the election, there are people out there planning on mass murdering poc and lgbtq+ people,' says text in the image. 'Please stay inside during the election and a few days after. It's not just a theory, there are leaked screenshots of group chats, Discord chats and private Facebook groups.' We could find none of that material to support the claim in the post. Subsequent versions of the message claimed without evidence that the Proud Boys, a far-right men's organization with a history of violent confrontations, was planning to mass murder people if Biden wins the election. Many of the tweets we found repeat the same language offering a trigger warning. Darren Linvill, a disinformation expert and associate professor at Clemson University, told PolitiFact the tweets appear to have originated among teenagers in the Philippines. 'I think this is all teen drama,' he said. 'We looked at several accounts, and they all seem legitimate. There is a lot of cutting and pasting, and while that is concerning it isn't that uncommon.' From Twitter, the message appears to have jumped to Instagram, where the same screenshot warning was first posted around noon on Nov. 2. Similar posts have received hundreds of thousands of likes and comments, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. Sarah Oates, professor and senior scholar in journalism at the University of Maryland, specializes in studying Russian disinformation. She said it's hard to know at this point whether the posts are being spread by people who want to intimidate individuals or whether they're sincerely worried. 'There are certainly reasons for people in these groups to feel threatened and they have been the victims of hate speech, attacks, and murder due to their status,' she said. 'People should look at the material and really consider - by sharing this am I sharing useful information or am I contributing to a campaign of terror against a marginalized group?' RELATED: What you need to know about Election Day misinformation 'Voter intimidation has partially moved online and especially on Election Day, it is very prudent to be very suspicious about the trustworthiness of any communications suggesting that eligible voters should stay away from the polling stations,' said Niklas Myhr, a marketing and economics professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., who specializes in social media. 'Some of these posts can also be discarded based on simple logic. Why should you not go and vote if these bad things are supposed to happen only after the results have been tallied?' We reached out on the afternoon of Nov. 3 to the FBI and the Department of Justice about the posts. We didn't get a reply from the Justice Department and the FBI said it had no comment. We could find no evidence that Trump supporters or the Proud Boys are planning mass murder if Biden wins the election. | Our ruling A series of social media posts claim that Trump supporters and right-wing groups are 'planning on mass murdering poc and lgbtq+ people' if Biden wins the election. There is no evidence to support that. The claim appears to be a viral social media rumor, and experts say they show hallmarks of being part of a campaign to suppress the vote. While law enforcement agencies nationwide are bracing for post-election unrest, we could find no credible threats of 'mass murder.' Without additional evidence, the claim is inaccurate. We rate it False. This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more. | [
"106650-proof-01-d378b7c2932345d7915013bb513bf069.jpg"
]
|
'If Biden wins the election, there are people out there planning on mass murdering poc and lbgtq+ people. Please stay inside during the election and a few days after. | Contradiction | The Election Day warning went viral on all the social media platforms. It was a frightening admonition to 'stay inside on Election Day and a few days after' because people are planning to 'mass murder' people of color and those within the LGBTQ community if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins against President Donald Trump. The posts give an appearance of being well-intentioned, urging people in those groups to stay home and, in some versions, to 'stay safe.' They were flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) These broad claims have the characteristics of disinformation intended to spread fear and discourage certain people from going out to vote. So while it may be packaged as a word of caution, experts say some social media users are unknowingly sharing a false message. (Screenshot from Twitter) Federal officials have warned some law enforcement agencies to be aware of legitimate threats of violence related to the election. But these frightening, non-specific social media claims that assert targeted mass murder is brewing seemed aimed to suppress the vote, said Paul Barrett, author of the paper, 'Disinformation and the 2020 Election: How the Social Media Industry Should Prepare.' 'People should not just be suspicious of such posts; they should reject them as obviously false and designed exclusively to frighten social media users and keep them from voting,' said Barrett, also deputy director of New York University's Center for Business and Human Rights. A PolitiFact analysis of the evolution of the message about Trump supporters 'mass murdering' people suggests it originated on Snapchat and TikTok before moving to Twitter just after midnight on Nov. 2. The first tweet we could find with an image of that message was published around 12:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. The account that posted it was created in June and was quote-tweeting another post that included an image of what looked like screenshots of several similar messages on platforms like Snapchat and TikTok. 'If Biden wins the election, there are people out there planning on mass murdering poc and lgbtq+ people,' says text in the image. 'Please stay inside during the election and a few days after. It's not just a theory, there are leaked screenshots of group chats, Discord chats and private Facebook groups.' We could find none of that material to support the claim in the post. Subsequent versions of the message claimed without evidence that the Proud Boys, a far-right men's organization with a history of violent confrontations, was planning to mass murder people if Biden wins the election. Many of the tweets we found repeat the same language offering a trigger warning. Darren Linvill, a disinformation expert and associate professor at Clemson University, told PolitiFact the tweets appear to have originated among teenagers in the Philippines. 'I think this is all teen drama,' he said. 'We looked at several accounts, and they all seem legitimate. There is a lot of cutting and pasting, and while that is concerning it isn't that uncommon.' From Twitter, the message appears to have jumped to Instagram, where the same screenshot warning was first posted around noon on Nov. 2. Similar posts have received hundreds of thousands of likes and comments, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. Sarah Oates, professor and senior scholar in journalism at the University of Maryland, specializes in studying Russian disinformation. She said it's hard to know at this point whether the posts are being spread by people who want to intimidate individuals or whether they're sincerely worried. 'There are certainly reasons for people in these groups to feel threatened and they have been the victims of hate speech, attacks, and murder due to their status,' she said. 'People should look at the material and really consider - by sharing this am I sharing useful information or am I contributing to a campaign of terror against a marginalized group?' RELATED: What you need to know about Election Day misinformation 'Voter intimidation has partially moved online and especially on Election Day, it is very prudent to be very suspicious about the trustworthiness of any communications suggesting that eligible voters should stay away from the polling stations,' said Niklas Myhr, a marketing and economics professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., who specializes in social media. 'Some of these posts can also be discarded based on simple logic. Why should you not go and vote if these bad things are supposed to happen only after the results have been tallied?' We reached out on the afternoon of Nov. 3 to the FBI and the Department of Justice about the posts. We didn't get a reply from the Justice Department and the FBI said it had no comment. We could find no evidence that Trump supporters or the Proud Boys are planning mass murder if Biden wins the election. | Our ruling A series of social media posts claim that Trump supporters and right-wing groups are 'planning on mass murdering poc and lgbtq+ people' if Biden wins the election. There is no evidence to support that. The claim appears to be a viral social media rumor, and experts say they show hallmarks of being part of a campaign to suppress the vote. While law enforcement agencies nationwide are bracing for post-election unrest, we could find no credible threats of 'mass murder.' Without additional evidence, the claim is inaccurate. We rate it False. This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more. | [
"106650-proof-01-d378b7c2932345d7915013bb513bf069.jpg"
]
|
'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families. | Contradiction | A new ad for President Donald Trump's reelection campaign paints Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as eager to raise the average voter's taxes. 'What would Joe Biden's plan do for you?' the ad says. 'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families. 82% of Americans would pay more, and Biden's plan gives illegal immigrants amnesty and health care. Joe Biden's a career politician who spent decades raising taxes. ... So what would the Biden plan do for you? Raise your taxes? That's it.' Would Biden really raise taxes by 14% on middle-income families? There's zero evidence of that. (The 82% statistic is also incorrect.) Biden's proposed changes would repeal provisions in President Donald Trump's tax law for taxpayers earning over $400,000. Specifically, Biden would: Increase the top corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%; Raise the top individual federal income tax rate to 39.6%; Place a 12.4% Social Security tax on incomes above $400,000; Tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income for very high earners. All of this is targeted toward the highest earners, those earning $400,000 or more per year. So where does the alleged 14% tax hike on middle-income Americans come from? That's unclear. A screenshot from the Trump campaign's recent ad. The MarketWatch article The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries for this article. The ad footnotes the assertion with a reference to an article from the financial website MarketWatch on March 4, 2020, when Biden was still in the thick of his party's presidential primary. The MarketWatch article provides no support for the 14% assertion in the Trump ad. The only mention of 14% in the article refers to the plan offered by one of Biden's primary opponents, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The article said that Warren would 'assess a 14.8% high-income social security tax on the top bracket.' But not only was that provision not part of Biden's plan, but it was also specifically targeted at the top tax bracket, not middle-income Americans. Independent tax analyses Taking a step back from the MarketWatch article, we also see no evidence that Biden's plan would produce such a big tax hike on middle-income taxpayers. Several independent groups of varied ideologies assessed the impacts of Biden's tax plan earlier this year. They projected that some of the burden of Biden's tax increases would fall to people making less than $400,000 in the form of lower wages or investment returns. This would be a result of Biden's proposal to hike the corporate tax rate. Unlike direct changes to individual tax rates and income thresholds, the impact of the corporate tax rate on ordinary Americans' tax returns is indirect and difficult to measure. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that's hawkish on the federal budget deficit, said that 'overall, Biden's tax plan would make the tax code more progressive, with the vast majority of increased tax burdens and the entirety of direct tax increases falling on high-income households.' The group summarized four other groups' assessments of how Biden's tax plan would affect members of the lowest, second-lowest, middle, second-highest, and highest income quintiles. The four analyses were conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, the Tax Foundation, the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. As the following chart shows, no quintile - even the top one - would see anything close to a 14% tax increase due to the Biden plan. Only the top 1% of earners would see anything approaching that degree of increase. According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis, the lowest income group would see their incomes drop by $30. The next would see a drop of $110; the middle would see a drop of $260; and the second-highest, with incomes up to $170,000, would see a loss of $590. Additional tax cuts Meanwhile, Biden has also proposed a number of tax cuts that were not included in the analyses above. Here are some of the bigger cuts being proposed by the campaign: • A temporarily expanded child tax credit, worth $3,000 per child for children ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under 6. Biden would make the credit fully refundable. • A $15,000 permanent tax credit for first-time homebuyers that could be advanced to the claimant rather than waiting until the following tax year. • A refundable tax credit for health insurance premiums. • Up to $8,000 in tax credits to help pay for child care. It's entirely possible that these proposed cuts would wipe out the increases from the corporate tax hike, making the assertion in Trump's ad even more wrong. The initial analysis 'does not provide support for Trump's claim that Biden's plan will raise taxes by 14% for middle-class families,' said Eric Toder, a fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. 'Not even close.' | Our ruling The Trump ad said that 'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families.' There is no evidence for this assertion. The article cited in the ad says nothing about this, and analyses by independent think tanks found a much smaller indirect hit from the corporate tax hike, one that could well be reversed by larger-scale tax cuts that Biden has proposed and that are currently being analyzed. We rate the statement False. | [
"106651-proof-00-0PzV5onTL2FJSa5gW5PtWHswsMLp-zDFXQxK_AZ6gSvuIeAjotZf06Sx0gZ80rOwNzQAI7zoQjTpfc_k.jpg",
"106651-proof-26-b9bae2d385409940d13fca575a222adf.jpg",
"106651-proof-35-Biden_tax_ad_screenshot.jpg"
]
|
'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families. | Contradiction | A new ad for President Donald Trump's reelection campaign paints Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as eager to raise the average voter's taxes. 'What would Joe Biden's plan do for you?' the ad says. 'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families. 82% of Americans would pay more, and Biden's plan gives illegal immigrants amnesty and health care. Joe Biden's a career politician who spent decades raising taxes. ... So what would the Biden plan do for you? Raise your taxes? That's it.' Would Biden really raise taxes by 14% on middle-income families? There's zero evidence of that. (The 82% statistic is also incorrect.) Biden's proposed changes would repeal provisions in President Donald Trump's tax law for taxpayers earning over $400,000. Specifically, Biden would: Increase the top corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%; Raise the top individual federal income tax rate to 39.6%; Place a 12.4% Social Security tax on incomes above $400,000; Tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income for very high earners. All of this is targeted toward the highest earners, those earning $400,000 or more per year. So where does the alleged 14% tax hike on middle-income Americans come from? That's unclear. A screenshot from the Trump campaign's recent ad. The MarketWatch article The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries for this article. The ad footnotes the assertion with a reference to an article from the financial website MarketWatch on March 4, 2020, when Biden was still in the thick of his party's presidential primary. The MarketWatch article provides no support for the 14% assertion in the Trump ad. The only mention of 14% in the article refers to the plan offered by one of Biden's primary opponents, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The article said that Warren would 'assess a 14.8% high-income social security tax on the top bracket.' But not only was that provision not part of Biden's plan, but it was also specifically targeted at the top tax bracket, not middle-income Americans. Independent tax analyses Taking a step back from the MarketWatch article, we also see no evidence that Biden's plan would produce such a big tax hike on middle-income taxpayers. Several independent groups of varied ideologies assessed the impacts of Biden's tax plan earlier this year. They projected that some of the burden of Biden's tax increases would fall to people making less than $400,000 in the form of lower wages or investment returns. This would be a result of Biden's proposal to hike the corporate tax rate. Unlike direct changes to individual tax rates and income thresholds, the impact of the corporate tax rate on ordinary Americans' tax returns is indirect and difficult to measure. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that's hawkish on the federal budget deficit, said that 'overall, Biden's tax plan would make the tax code more progressive, with the vast majority of increased tax burdens and the entirety of direct tax increases falling on high-income households.' The group summarized four other groups' assessments of how Biden's tax plan would affect members of the lowest, second-lowest, middle, second-highest, and highest income quintiles. The four analyses were conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, the Tax Foundation, the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. As the following chart shows, no quintile - even the top one - would see anything close to a 14% tax increase due to the Biden plan. Only the top 1% of earners would see anything approaching that degree of increase. According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis, the lowest income group would see their incomes drop by $30. The next would see a drop of $110; the middle would see a drop of $260; and the second-highest, with incomes up to $170,000, would see a loss of $590. Additional tax cuts Meanwhile, Biden has also proposed a number of tax cuts that were not included in the analyses above. Here are some of the bigger cuts being proposed by the campaign: • A temporarily expanded child tax credit, worth $3,000 per child for children ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under 6. Biden would make the credit fully refundable. • A $15,000 permanent tax credit for first-time homebuyers that could be advanced to the claimant rather than waiting until the following tax year. • A refundable tax credit for health insurance premiums. • Up to $8,000 in tax credits to help pay for child care. It's entirely possible that these proposed cuts would wipe out the increases from the corporate tax hike, making the assertion in Trump's ad even more wrong. The initial analysis 'does not provide support for Trump's claim that Biden's plan will raise taxes by 14% for middle-class families,' said Eric Toder, a fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. 'Not even close.' | Our ruling The Trump ad said that 'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families.' There is no evidence for this assertion. The article cited in the ad says nothing about this, and analyses by independent think tanks found a much smaller indirect hit from the corporate tax hike, one that could well be reversed by larger-scale tax cuts that Biden has proposed and that are currently being analyzed. We rate the statement False. | [
"106651-proof-00-0PzV5onTL2FJSa5gW5PtWHswsMLp-zDFXQxK_AZ6gSvuIeAjotZf06Sx0gZ80rOwNzQAI7zoQjTpfc_k.jpg",
"106651-proof-26-b9bae2d385409940d13fca575a222adf.jpg",
"106651-proof-35-Biden_tax_ad_screenshot.jpg"
]
|
'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families. | Contradiction | A new ad for President Donald Trump's reelection campaign paints Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as eager to raise the average voter's taxes. 'What would Joe Biden's plan do for you?' the ad says. 'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families. 82% of Americans would pay more, and Biden's plan gives illegal immigrants amnesty and health care. Joe Biden's a career politician who spent decades raising taxes. ... So what would the Biden plan do for you? Raise your taxes? That's it.' Would Biden really raise taxes by 14% on middle-income families? There's zero evidence of that. (The 82% statistic is also incorrect.) Biden's proposed changes would repeal provisions in President Donald Trump's tax law for taxpayers earning over $400,000. Specifically, Biden would: Increase the top corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%; Raise the top individual federal income tax rate to 39.6%; Place a 12.4% Social Security tax on incomes above $400,000; Tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income for very high earners. All of this is targeted toward the highest earners, those earning $400,000 or more per year. So where does the alleged 14% tax hike on middle-income Americans come from? That's unclear. A screenshot from the Trump campaign's recent ad. The MarketWatch article The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries for this article. The ad footnotes the assertion with a reference to an article from the financial website MarketWatch on March 4, 2020, when Biden was still in the thick of his party's presidential primary. The MarketWatch article provides no support for the 14% assertion in the Trump ad. The only mention of 14% in the article refers to the plan offered by one of Biden's primary opponents, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The article said that Warren would 'assess a 14.8% high-income social security tax on the top bracket.' But not only was that provision not part of Biden's plan, but it was also specifically targeted at the top tax bracket, not middle-income Americans. Independent tax analyses Taking a step back from the MarketWatch article, we also see no evidence that Biden's plan would produce such a big tax hike on middle-income taxpayers. Several independent groups of varied ideologies assessed the impacts of Biden's tax plan earlier this year. They projected that some of the burden of Biden's tax increases would fall to people making less than $400,000 in the form of lower wages or investment returns. This would be a result of Biden's proposal to hike the corporate tax rate. Unlike direct changes to individual tax rates and income thresholds, the impact of the corporate tax rate on ordinary Americans' tax returns is indirect and difficult to measure. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that's hawkish on the federal budget deficit, said that 'overall, Biden's tax plan would make the tax code more progressive, with the vast majority of increased tax burdens and the entirety of direct tax increases falling on high-income households.' The group summarized four other groups' assessments of how Biden's tax plan would affect members of the lowest, second-lowest, middle, second-highest, and highest income quintiles. The four analyses were conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, the Tax Foundation, the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. As the following chart shows, no quintile - even the top one - would see anything close to a 14% tax increase due to the Biden plan. Only the top 1% of earners would see anything approaching that degree of increase. According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis, the lowest income group would see their incomes drop by $30. The next would see a drop of $110; the middle would see a drop of $260; and the second-highest, with incomes up to $170,000, would see a loss of $590. Additional tax cuts Meanwhile, Biden has also proposed a number of tax cuts that were not included in the analyses above. Here are some of the bigger cuts being proposed by the campaign: • A temporarily expanded child tax credit, worth $3,000 per child for children ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under 6. Biden would make the credit fully refundable. • A $15,000 permanent tax credit for first-time homebuyers that could be advanced to the claimant rather than waiting until the following tax year. • A refundable tax credit for health insurance premiums. • Up to $8,000 in tax credits to help pay for child care. It's entirely possible that these proposed cuts would wipe out the increases from the corporate tax hike, making the assertion in Trump's ad even more wrong. The initial analysis 'does not provide support for Trump's claim that Biden's plan will raise taxes by 14% for middle-class families,' said Eric Toder, a fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. 'Not even close.' | Our ruling The Trump ad said that 'Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families.' There is no evidence for this assertion. The article cited in the ad says nothing about this, and analyses by independent think tanks found a much smaller indirect hit from the corporate tax hike, one that could well be reversed by larger-scale tax cuts that Biden has proposed and that are currently being analyzed. We rate the statement False. | [
"106651-proof-00-0PzV5onTL2FJSa5gW5PtWHswsMLp-zDFXQxK_AZ6gSvuIeAjotZf06Sx0gZ80rOwNzQAI7zoQjTpfc_k.jpg",
"106651-proof-26-b9bae2d385409940d13fca575a222adf.jpg",
"106651-proof-35-Biden_tax_ad_screenshot.jpg"
]
|
On Inauguration Day, Vice President Kamala Harris 'put her clutch on top of the Bible so her hand is not touching it. | Contradiction | On Jan. 20, Kamala Harris became the first female, Black and Asian American vice president of the United States. But on Facebook, some say her swearing-in ceremony was a sham. 'JUST SO YOU KNOW: She put her clutch on top of the Bible so her hand is not touching it,' says one post published Jan. 21. (Screenshot from Facebook) The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Similar claims have been widely shared in groups dedicated to former President Donald Trump, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. The post includes a photo of Harris with her right hand raised as she takes the vice president's oath of office. Her left hand is on a flat, black object resting on top of a thick Bible, which belongs to a close family friend. That object is not a clutch, as the Facebook post claims - it's another Bible. Other fact-checkers have debunked rumors that it's a small handbag. Harris requested the second Bible prior to Inauguration Day. It belonged to Thurgood Marshall, a former Supreme Court justice who as a civil-rights lawyer argued groundbreaking cases like Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and Shelley v. Kraemer. In her memoir, Harris called Marshall 'one of my heroes and inspirations.' A photo of Harris' swearing-in ceremony from another angle shows that her left hand is resting on a Bible. (AP) The Facebook post is inaccurate and makes a ridiculous claim. We rate it Pants on Fire! | The Facebook post is inaccurate and makes a ridiculous claim. We rate it Pants on Fire! | [
"106654-proof-00-Untitled_design_4.jpg"
]
|
Says NASCAR announced that driver Bubba Wallace mistook a serpentine automotive belt for a noose in his garage stall. | Contradiction | A noose was recently found in the garage stall of Black driver Bubba Wallace during a NASCAR race at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. The incident occurred just weeks after Wallace - who is the only fulltime Black driver in NASCAR's Cup Series - painted his car in a Black Lives Matter scheme for a race and successfully helped push NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag at its events and facilities. NASCAR issued a statement saying it's launching an immediate investigation. The FBI and U.S. Justice Department said they are also looking into it. But one Facebook user claims that these investigations are apparently already over, sharing a purported announcement from NASCAR that Wallace confused a circular serpentine automotive belt for a noose. The post, made to look like a screenshot of a news report, reads: 'Talladega, Ala. - NASCAR said a serpentine belt was confused as a noose in Bubba Wallace's garage stall at Talladega Speedway in Alabama on Sunday. Wallace, who is from Mobile, is the only Black driver in the Cup Series In a statement released Sunday night, NASCAR said, 'Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that something that resembled a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 team. We were angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we took this allegation. We launched an immediate investigation, and determined Bubba Wallace had mistaken a 26' serpentine automotive belt for a noose.'' In the caption, the user wrote: 'What a moron! Can't drive and don't even know what a serpentine belt is. Get everybody all stirred up over your stupidity AGAIN!!!!' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) NASCAR made no such announcement. The post was manipulated to make it look like a NASCAR statement. Despite its appearance as a news story, the supposed development has not been reported by any news organization. The most we could find was this unsourced photo on social media. The faux statement contains some similarities to the real one that NASCAR released on June 21, but it also has notable differences, particularly the omission of a serpentine belt. pic.twitter.com/aArKg0Tq3c- NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 22, 2020 Wallace released his own statement, and in a show of support, dozens of drivers and crew members pushed Wallace in his car to the front of the field during pre-race activities on June 22. | Our ruling A Facebook post says NASCAR announced that Wallace mistook a serpentine automotive belt as a noose. This isn't accurate. NASCAR has made no such statement as investigations continue. We rate this Pants on Fire! (Update: On June 23, 2020, NASCAR released a subsequent statement about the incident. It read: 'The FBI has completed its investigation at Talladega Superspeedway and determined that Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime. The FBI report concludes, and photographic evidence confirms, that the garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose had been positioned there since as early as last fall. This was obviously well before the 43 team's arrival and garage assignment. We appreciate the FBI's quick and thorough investigation and are thankful to learn that this was not an intentional, racist act against Bubba. We remain steadfast in our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all who love racing.') | []
|
'Jaime Harrison is being left off of South Carolina ballots' | Contradiction | South Carolina Democrats are eager to see if Jaime Harrison, with a massive fundraising haul, can pull off an upset of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in the red state. But a Facebook post suggests - without evidence - that something nefarious is happening with the ballots. 'Jaime Harrison is being left off of SC ballots,' states the Facebook post. 'South Carolinians who are voting 'straight Democratic' have noted that Jaime Harrison isn't included on their ballots. Voters have had to manually go through and select individual names.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The South Carolina Election Commission had received complaints from the state Democratic Party that some voters said Harrison's name was missing when they cast ballots on touchscreen machines at early voting. Chris Whitmire, a spokesman for the commission, said the state consulted with local elections officials and checked out the complaints and found no proof of problems. Whitmire forwarded to us the email correspondence between Shaundra Young Scott, a voter protection lawyer for the state Democratic Party, and Whitmire between Oct. 12 and 14. 'We have had multiple reports that Jaime Harrison's name is missing from the ballot,' Scott wrote Oct. 12, citing complaints from voters in Florence and Georgetown counties. In an email the next day, Scott said that the Democrats had reports from two voters who said they were unable to vote for Harrison when they voted straight party and had to try multiple times. Scott wrote in a subsequent email that a similar situation occurred with a straight party voter in Beaufort who had to try three times before Harrison's name was included. It wasn't clear from the emails exactly how many voters had made allegations, but Scott told us in an interview it was a handful. We spoke to Whitmire on a video call so he could show us how voting works on touch-screen machines in South Carolina, one of a handful of states that offer what is known as straight party voting. Roughly half of South Carolina voters generally opt for straight party voting, where they can select all of a party's candidates in partisan races without having to select them individually. Here's how it works: The voter sees a screen that allows the voter to choose their party. (A voter who doesn't want to vote straight party hits the 'next' button.) If a voter chooses Democrat, then the party's candidates automatically appear In this case, when the voter is on the Senate screen, Harrison's name automatically appears with a green check mark. But if the voter touches Harrison's name, then his name is deselected. Writer Jennifer Cohn tweeted an image of what deselecting Harrison's name would look like. The machine warns voters if they haven't chosen a candidate in a race. The touch screen has a review screen at the end, and then prints out a card that shows the voter's choices. If a voter sees that their selection for Senate wasn't on the card, the voter can tell the poll manager that it's wrong, and then the voter starts over. (The printed card is scanned for tabulation. Only one card per voter is ultimately put through the scanner.) State officials contacted the election directors in Florence and Georgetown counties, and neither one was aware of any voter seeing a ballot without Harrison's name, Whitmire told Scott in an email. Whitmire wrote that one possible explanation is that some straight-ticket Democratic voters are touching Harrison's name to make sure they're voting for him and end up unintentionally deselecting his name. 'In this situation, when the voter reached the review screen, they would see no selection, and if they printed their ballot they would also not see Harrison's name,' Whitmire wrote. 'Of course, this situation could happen with any partisan candidate.' We asked Scott if it was possible that voters were unintentionally deselecting Harrison's name. 'I don't want to speculate. We are still investigating and trying to figure that out,' she said. The party has poll watchers inside polling sites. So far, she said, no poll watchers told her that they had seen a situation with Harrison's name missing from ballots, but she has asked them to be on the lookout. We also contacted the Harrison campaign and asked them to send any evidence they had that Harrison's name was omitted from the ballots. 'We are not currently aware of the problem you described,' said Guy King, a Harrison spokesman. 'South Carolinians who experience any difficulty trying to vote should call 1-855-785-0222 or go to VOTEBLUESC.com.' Harrison is a former lobbyist who became the first African American to run the South Carolina Democratic Party. Some polls have shown the race as close while others have shown Graham with a lead. Harrison raised $57 million in the most recent quarter, shattering the quarterly record for a Senate candidate set by Beto O'Rourke in Texas in 2018. RELATED: Lindsey Graham's Truth-O-Meter from PolitiFact | Our ruling A Facebook post said 'Jaime Harrison is being left off of South Carolina ballots.' We found no evidence that Harrison's name has been left off the ballot, and Harrison's campaign told us they know of no evidence showing that, either. Elections officials investigated and said voters using touch screens may be accidentally deselecting Harrison after voting straight-party, but it's possible to fix such an error before casting a final vote. We rate this statement False. | [
"106679-proof-25-609f0fa30d71e5fec916971d3aa79392.jpg"
]
|
'Jaime Harrison is being left off of South Carolina ballots' | Contradiction | South Carolina Democrats are eager to see if Jaime Harrison, with a massive fundraising haul, can pull off an upset of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in the red state. But a Facebook post suggests - without evidence - that something nefarious is happening with the ballots. 'Jaime Harrison is being left off of SC ballots,' states the Facebook post. 'South Carolinians who are voting 'straight Democratic' have noted that Jaime Harrison isn't included on their ballots. Voters have had to manually go through and select individual names.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The South Carolina Election Commission had received complaints from the state Democratic Party that some voters said Harrison's name was missing when they cast ballots on touchscreen machines at early voting. Chris Whitmire, a spokesman for the commission, said the state consulted with local elections officials and checked out the complaints and found no proof of problems. Whitmire forwarded to us the email correspondence between Shaundra Young Scott, a voter protection lawyer for the state Democratic Party, and Whitmire between Oct. 12 and 14. 'We have had multiple reports that Jaime Harrison's name is missing from the ballot,' Scott wrote Oct. 12, citing complaints from voters in Florence and Georgetown counties. In an email the next day, Scott said that the Democrats had reports from two voters who said they were unable to vote for Harrison when they voted straight party and had to try multiple times. Scott wrote in a subsequent email that a similar situation occurred with a straight party voter in Beaufort who had to try three times before Harrison's name was included. It wasn't clear from the emails exactly how many voters had made allegations, but Scott told us in an interview it was a handful. We spoke to Whitmire on a video call so he could show us how voting works on touch-screen machines in South Carolina, one of a handful of states that offer what is known as straight party voting. Roughly half of South Carolina voters generally opt for straight party voting, where they can select all of a party's candidates in partisan races without having to select them individually. Here's how it works: The voter sees a screen that allows the voter to choose their party. (A voter who doesn't want to vote straight party hits the 'next' button.) If a voter chooses Democrat, then the party's candidates automatically appear In this case, when the voter is on the Senate screen, Harrison's name automatically appears with a green check mark. But if the voter touches Harrison's name, then his name is deselected. Writer Jennifer Cohn tweeted an image of what deselecting Harrison's name would look like. The machine warns voters if they haven't chosen a candidate in a race. The touch screen has a review screen at the end, and then prints out a card that shows the voter's choices. If a voter sees that their selection for Senate wasn't on the card, the voter can tell the poll manager that it's wrong, and then the voter starts over. (The printed card is scanned for tabulation. Only one card per voter is ultimately put through the scanner.) State officials contacted the election directors in Florence and Georgetown counties, and neither one was aware of any voter seeing a ballot without Harrison's name, Whitmire told Scott in an email. Whitmire wrote that one possible explanation is that some straight-ticket Democratic voters are touching Harrison's name to make sure they're voting for him and end up unintentionally deselecting his name. 'In this situation, when the voter reached the review screen, they would see no selection, and if they printed their ballot they would also not see Harrison's name,' Whitmire wrote. 'Of course, this situation could happen with any partisan candidate.' We asked Scott if it was possible that voters were unintentionally deselecting Harrison's name. 'I don't want to speculate. We are still investigating and trying to figure that out,' she said. The party has poll watchers inside polling sites. So far, she said, no poll watchers told her that they had seen a situation with Harrison's name missing from ballots, but she has asked them to be on the lookout. We also contacted the Harrison campaign and asked them to send any evidence they had that Harrison's name was omitted from the ballots. 'We are not currently aware of the problem you described,' said Guy King, a Harrison spokesman. 'South Carolinians who experience any difficulty trying to vote should call 1-855-785-0222 or go to VOTEBLUESC.com.' Harrison is a former lobbyist who became the first African American to run the South Carolina Democratic Party. Some polls have shown the race as close while others have shown Graham with a lead. Harrison raised $57 million in the most recent quarter, shattering the quarterly record for a Senate candidate set by Beto O'Rourke in Texas in 2018. RELATED: Lindsey Graham's Truth-O-Meter from PolitiFact | Our ruling A Facebook post said 'Jaime Harrison is being left off of South Carolina ballots.' We found no evidence that Harrison's name has been left off the ballot, and Harrison's campaign told us they know of no evidence showing that, either. Elections officials investigated and said voters using touch screens may be accidentally deselecting Harrison after voting straight-party, but it's possible to fix such an error before casting a final vote. We rate this statement False. | [
"106679-proof-25-609f0fa30d71e5fec916971d3aa79392.jpg"
]
|
'Jaime Harrison is being left off of South Carolina ballots' | Contradiction | South Carolina Democrats are eager to see if Jaime Harrison, with a massive fundraising haul, can pull off an upset of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in the red state. But a Facebook post suggests - without evidence - that something nefarious is happening with the ballots. 'Jaime Harrison is being left off of SC ballots,' states the Facebook post. 'South Carolinians who are voting 'straight Democratic' have noted that Jaime Harrison isn't included on their ballots. Voters have had to manually go through and select individual names.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The South Carolina Election Commission had received complaints from the state Democratic Party that some voters said Harrison's name was missing when they cast ballots on touchscreen machines at early voting. Chris Whitmire, a spokesman for the commission, said the state consulted with local elections officials and checked out the complaints and found no proof of problems. Whitmire forwarded to us the email correspondence between Shaundra Young Scott, a voter protection lawyer for the state Democratic Party, and Whitmire between Oct. 12 and 14. 'We have had multiple reports that Jaime Harrison's name is missing from the ballot,' Scott wrote Oct. 12, citing complaints from voters in Florence and Georgetown counties. In an email the next day, Scott said that the Democrats had reports from two voters who said they were unable to vote for Harrison when they voted straight party and had to try multiple times. Scott wrote in a subsequent email that a similar situation occurred with a straight party voter in Beaufort who had to try three times before Harrison's name was included. It wasn't clear from the emails exactly how many voters had made allegations, but Scott told us in an interview it was a handful. We spoke to Whitmire on a video call so he could show us how voting works on touch-screen machines in South Carolina, one of a handful of states that offer what is known as straight party voting. Roughly half of South Carolina voters generally opt for straight party voting, where they can select all of a party's candidates in partisan races without having to select them individually. Here's how it works: The voter sees a screen that allows the voter to choose their party. (A voter who doesn't want to vote straight party hits the 'next' button.) If a voter chooses Democrat, then the party's candidates automatically appear In this case, when the voter is on the Senate screen, Harrison's name automatically appears with a green check mark. But if the voter touches Harrison's name, then his name is deselected. Writer Jennifer Cohn tweeted an image of what deselecting Harrison's name would look like. The machine warns voters if they haven't chosen a candidate in a race. The touch screen has a review screen at the end, and then prints out a card that shows the voter's choices. If a voter sees that their selection for Senate wasn't on the card, the voter can tell the poll manager that it's wrong, and then the voter starts over. (The printed card is scanned for tabulation. Only one card per voter is ultimately put through the scanner.) State officials contacted the election directors in Florence and Georgetown counties, and neither one was aware of any voter seeing a ballot without Harrison's name, Whitmire told Scott in an email. Whitmire wrote that one possible explanation is that some straight-ticket Democratic voters are touching Harrison's name to make sure they're voting for him and end up unintentionally deselecting his name. 'In this situation, when the voter reached the review screen, they would see no selection, and if they printed their ballot they would also not see Harrison's name,' Whitmire wrote. 'Of course, this situation could happen with any partisan candidate.' We asked Scott if it was possible that voters were unintentionally deselecting Harrison's name. 'I don't want to speculate. We are still investigating and trying to figure that out,' she said. The party has poll watchers inside polling sites. So far, she said, no poll watchers told her that they had seen a situation with Harrison's name missing from ballots, but she has asked them to be on the lookout. We also contacted the Harrison campaign and asked them to send any evidence they had that Harrison's name was omitted from the ballots. 'We are not currently aware of the problem you described,' said Guy King, a Harrison spokesman. 'South Carolinians who experience any difficulty trying to vote should call 1-855-785-0222 or go to VOTEBLUESC.com.' Harrison is a former lobbyist who became the first African American to run the South Carolina Democratic Party. Some polls have shown the race as close while others have shown Graham with a lead. Harrison raised $57 million in the most recent quarter, shattering the quarterly record for a Senate candidate set by Beto O'Rourke in Texas in 2018. RELATED: Lindsey Graham's Truth-O-Meter from PolitiFact | Our ruling A Facebook post said 'Jaime Harrison is being left off of South Carolina ballots.' We found no evidence that Harrison's name has been left off the ballot, and Harrison's campaign told us they know of no evidence showing that, either. Elections officials investigated and said voters using touch screens may be accidentally deselecting Harrison after voting straight-party, but it's possible to fix such an error before casting a final vote. We rate this statement False. | [
"106679-proof-25-609f0fa30d71e5fec916971d3aa79392.jpg"
]
|
'If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any. | Contradiction | President Donald Trump sought to downplay the numbers associated with COVID-19 in the United States - which have passed 2 million confirmed cases and are nearing 120,000 lives lost - by arguing that the soaring national count was simply the result of superior testing. 'If you don't test, you don't have any cases,' Trump said at a June 15 roundtable discussion at the White House. 'If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any.' It's a talking point the administration is emphasizing. Vice President Mike Pence reiterated it during a phone call to Republican governors that evening, recommending they use the argument as a strategy to quiet public concern about surging case tallies in some states. It's also a variation on a tweet the president sent earlier in the day. With that in mind, we wanted to dig deeper. We reached out to the White House for comment or clarification, but we never heard back. Independent researchers told us, though, that the president's remarks are not only misleading - they're also counterproductive in terms of thinking through what's needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The big picture Essentially, the president is arguing that the United States is finding more cases of COVID-19 because we are testing more - and our increased testing makes it look like we have a worse epidemic than other countries do. 'We will show more - more cases when other countries have far more cases than we do; they just don't talk about it,' he added. But that isn't true. The numbers paint a stark picture. The United States has recorded 2.1 million cases of the novel virus so far, about a quarter of the global total and more than any other country. To Trump's point, the country is testing more now than it did at the start of the outbreak - per capita, the U.S. is in the top 20% of countries when it comes to cumulative tests run. But this beefed up testing is still likely undercounting. The problem is that the U.S. outbreak is worse than that of many other countries - so we need to be testing a higher percentage of our population than do others. A way to understand this: the number of tests necessary to identify a positive case. If it's easier to find a positive case, that suggests the virus has spread further and more testing is necessary to track the spread of COVID-19. For instance, statistics from the United States and the United Kingdom are fairly similar in terms of how many coronavirus tests are done daily per million people. But those tests yield far more positive cases in the United States. That suggests the outbreak here requires more per-capita testing than does the U.K.'s. 'We have a much bigger epidemic, so you have to test more proportionately,' said Jennifer Kates, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Put another way, a larger health crisis means - even after controlling for population size - the United States will have to test more people to find out where and how the virus has spread. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) And while the U.S. has ramped up its testing since March, many parts of the country still don't have sufficient systems in place - from facilities to staff to medical supplies - for diagnosing COVID-19, researchers told us. If we stopped testing? And what about the president's assertion that 'if we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases' or none at all? On its literal phrasing, it's absurd, experts said. 'The implication that not testing makes the problem go away is completely false. It could not be more false,' said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. That's because testing doesn't create instances of the virus - it is just a way of showing and tracking them. (The president made a similar point during the same White House roundtable event.) But even if you take it figuratively - the idea that our expanded testing resources have inflated our sense of the epidemic - it's still misleading. 'We're seeing a lot of cases because we're testing? It just doesn't ring true,' Kates said. 'The U.S. has made a lot of progress for sure. But that job is not finished.' The president's claim is part of a larger re-election strategy, argued Robert Blendon, a health care pollster at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The idea is to suggest that the health crisis is mostly exaggerated - and that things are getting better, and Americans should feel comfortable going back to work. 'If the economy takes off, the president has a chance of re-election,' Blendon said. 'If it contracts as a result of expansion of cases, and the only way we know how to respond is restriction of economic activity, he's gone.' But the problem, Blendon added, is that COVID-19 counts are still climbing in multiple states. And people are still dying of the virus. That gets at another point: Diagnostic testing isn't the only data source to reveal the pandemic's existence. Let's not forget about hospitalization rates and death counts. The number of deaths continues to rise, and hospitalizations are higher than they would be in the virus's absence. | Our ruling Trump argued that the nation's high count of COVID-19 cases is simply a result of our expanded testing capacity. His point is entirely incorrect. The most relevant data suggests that the U.S. isn't testing enough to match the severity of the pandemic. Even with our higher testing ratio, we're probably still undercounting compared to other countries. Testing doesn't create the virus. Even without diagnostics, COVID-19 would still pose a problem. We just would know less about it. And in fact, eliminating testing may alter the public's perception of the pandemic, but it wouldn't conceal it. If anything, it would likely worsen the crisis, since the public health system wouldn't know how to accurately track and prevent the spread of the virus. The claim has no merit and seriously misrepresents the severity of the public health crisis. We rate it Pants on Fire. | []
|
'If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any. | Contradiction | President Donald Trump sought to downplay the numbers associated with COVID-19 in the United States - which have passed 2 million confirmed cases and are nearing 120,000 lives lost - by arguing that the soaring national count was simply the result of superior testing. 'If you don't test, you don't have any cases,' Trump said at a June 15 roundtable discussion at the White House. 'If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any.' It's a talking point the administration is emphasizing. Vice President Mike Pence reiterated it during a phone call to Republican governors that evening, recommending they use the argument as a strategy to quiet public concern about surging case tallies in some states. It's also a variation on a tweet the president sent earlier in the day. With that in mind, we wanted to dig deeper. We reached out to the White House for comment or clarification, but we never heard back. Independent researchers told us, though, that the president's remarks are not only misleading - they're also counterproductive in terms of thinking through what's needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The big picture Essentially, the president is arguing that the United States is finding more cases of COVID-19 because we are testing more - and our increased testing makes it look like we have a worse epidemic than other countries do. 'We will show more - more cases when other countries have far more cases than we do; they just don't talk about it,' he added. But that isn't true. The numbers paint a stark picture. The United States has recorded 2.1 million cases of the novel virus so far, about a quarter of the global total and more than any other country. To Trump's point, the country is testing more now than it did at the start of the outbreak - per capita, the U.S. is in the top 20% of countries when it comes to cumulative tests run. But this beefed up testing is still likely undercounting. The problem is that the U.S. outbreak is worse than that of many other countries - so we need to be testing a higher percentage of our population than do others. A way to understand this: the number of tests necessary to identify a positive case. If it's easier to find a positive case, that suggests the virus has spread further and more testing is necessary to track the spread of COVID-19. For instance, statistics from the United States and the United Kingdom are fairly similar in terms of how many coronavirus tests are done daily per million people. But those tests yield far more positive cases in the United States. That suggests the outbreak here requires more per-capita testing than does the U.K.'s. 'We have a much bigger epidemic, so you have to test more proportionately,' said Jennifer Kates, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Put another way, a larger health crisis means - even after controlling for population size - the United States will have to test more people to find out where and how the virus has spread. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) And while the U.S. has ramped up its testing since March, many parts of the country still don't have sufficient systems in place - from facilities to staff to medical supplies - for diagnosing COVID-19, researchers told us. If we stopped testing? And what about the president's assertion that 'if we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases' or none at all? On its literal phrasing, it's absurd, experts said. 'The implication that not testing makes the problem go away is completely false. It could not be more false,' said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. That's because testing doesn't create instances of the virus - it is just a way of showing and tracking them. (The president made a similar point during the same White House roundtable event.) But even if you take it figuratively - the idea that our expanded testing resources have inflated our sense of the epidemic - it's still misleading. 'We're seeing a lot of cases because we're testing? It just doesn't ring true,' Kates said. 'The U.S. has made a lot of progress for sure. But that job is not finished.' The president's claim is part of a larger re-election strategy, argued Robert Blendon, a health care pollster at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The idea is to suggest that the health crisis is mostly exaggerated - and that things are getting better, and Americans should feel comfortable going back to work. 'If the economy takes off, the president has a chance of re-election,' Blendon said. 'If it contracts as a result of expansion of cases, and the only way we know how to respond is restriction of economic activity, he's gone.' But the problem, Blendon added, is that COVID-19 counts are still climbing in multiple states. And people are still dying of the virus. That gets at another point: Diagnostic testing isn't the only data source to reveal the pandemic's existence. Let's not forget about hospitalization rates and death counts. The number of deaths continues to rise, and hospitalizations are higher than they would be in the virus's absence. | Our ruling Trump argued that the nation's high count of COVID-19 cases is simply a result of our expanded testing capacity. His point is entirely incorrect. The most relevant data suggests that the U.S. isn't testing enough to match the severity of the pandemic. Even with our higher testing ratio, we're probably still undercounting compared to other countries. Testing doesn't create the virus. Even without diagnostics, COVID-19 would still pose a problem. We just would know less about it. And in fact, eliminating testing may alter the public's perception of the pandemic, but it wouldn't conceal it. If anything, it would likely worsen the crisis, since the public health system wouldn't know how to accurately track and prevent the spread of the virus. The claim has no merit and seriously misrepresents the severity of the public health crisis. We rate it Pants on Fire. | []
|
'Dr. Fauci sat on Microsoft's board of directors. | Contradiction | Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are both prominent voices in public discourse about the COVID-19 pandemic, and regular targets of misinformation. One recent attack focuses on both men. 'I bet you didn't know Dr. Fauci sat on Microsoft's board of directors - and that Bill Gates - was his boss...' a Facebook post says. It was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) That's because Fauci is not on Microsoft's 12-member board of directors, and according to Microsoft, he never has been. We reviewed the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission going back to 1994 and Fauci is not mentioned. Searching for Fauci's name on Microsoft's website, we found citations of his work on Microsoft Academic, where people can search for scientific journal articles, but nothing connecting him to Microsoft's board. We also didn't find news coverage suggesting he served on Microsoft's board when we searched Nexis news archives for articles about Fauci, the company and its board. Scouring the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website for Fauci's name, we found a 2010 press release about 'a collaboration to increase coordination across the international vaccine community and create a Global Vaccine Action Plan.' Fauci was among five people named to the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration leadership council, which was formed to oversee the collaboration's planning efforts, according to the press release. A 2003 Gates Foundation press release about a partnership with the National Institutes of Health said Fauci, among other scientists, was named to a scientific board to 'guide and direct' an initiative to 'identify critical scientific challenges in global health and increase research on diseases that cause millions of deaths in the developing world.' But we found nothing to corroborate what this Facebook post says, and Microsoft denies the claim. We rate it False. | We rate it False. | []
|
'Wisconsin has more votes than people who are registered to vote. ... This is direct evidence of fraud. | Contradiction | A winner had yet to be declared in the presidential race in Wisconsin when, on Nov. 4, a tweet wrongly alleging voter fraud started to spread online. 'BREAKING: Wisconsin has more votes than people who are registered to vote,' tweeted Mike Coudrey, who describes himself as an activist, entrepreneur and investor. 'Total number of registered voters: 3,129,000. Total number of votes cast: 3,239,920. This is direct evidence of voter fraud.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Coudrey, who on Election Day tweeted two other inaccurate claims that we debunked, has since deleted the tweet. But not before it was shared widely on Twitter and Facebook, where one account wrote: 'Proof voter fraud in Wisconsin materializes.' We reached out to Coudrey about his tweet but did not immediately receive a reply. His claim drew the attention of New York Times reporter Sheera Frenkel, who quickly called it out as misinformation. 'There are more than 3.6 million registered voters in Wisconsin. Look for yourself,' she tweeted, sharing a link to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. According to the commission, as of Nov. 1, the state had more than 3.6 million active registered voters. The commission's verified Twitter account also tweeted that statistic on Nov. 4, seemingly in response to Coudrey's tweet. Wisconsin also allows voters to register on Election Day, the commission said, which means that the voter registration numbers that some counties report in their unofficial results may not be a true indicator of how many people are registered to vote. Even so, the total number of votes cast and counted in the presidential election in Wisconsin was 3,297,199 as of about 1 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 4 - fewer than the number of registered voters in the state as of Nov. 1. 'There are never more ballots than registered voters,' the commission tweeted. We rate the claim that Wisconsin had more votes than registered voters Pants on Fire! This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more. | We rate the claim that Wisconsin had more votes than registered voters Pants on Fire! This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more. | [
"106698-proof-10-8b5910c23f09868e22122982e4060241.jpeg"
]
|
'Wisconsin has more votes than people who are registered to vote. ... This is direct evidence of fraud. | Contradiction | A winner had yet to be declared in the presidential race in Wisconsin when, on Nov. 4, a tweet wrongly alleging voter fraud started to spread online. 'BREAKING: Wisconsin has more votes than people who are registered to vote,' tweeted Mike Coudrey, who describes himself as an activist, entrepreneur and investor. 'Total number of registered voters: 3,129,000. Total number of votes cast: 3,239,920. This is direct evidence of voter fraud.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Coudrey, who on Election Day tweeted two other inaccurate claims that we debunked, has since deleted the tweet. But not before it was shared widely on Twitter and Facebook, where one account wrote: 'Proof voter fraud in Wisconsin materializes.' We reached out to Coudrey about his tweet but did not immediately receive a reply. His claim drew the attention of New York Times reporter Sheera Frenkel, who quickly called it out as misinformation. 'There are more than 3.6 million registered voters in Wisconsin. Look for yourself,' she tweeted, sharing a link to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. According to the commission, as of Nov. 1, the state had more than 3.6 million active registered voters. The commission's verified Twitter account also tweeted that statistic on Nov. 4, seemingly in response to Coudrey's tweet. Wisconsin also allows voters to register on Election Day, the commission said, which means that the voter registration numbers that some counties report in their unofficial results may not be a true indicator of how many people are registered to vote. Even so, the total number of votes cast and counted in the presidential election in Wisconsin was 3,297,199 as of about 1 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 4 - fewer than the number of registered voters in the state as of Nov. 1. 'There are never more ballots than registered voters,' the commission tweeted. We rate the claim that Wisconsin had more votes than registered voters Pants on Fire! This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more. | We rate the claim that Wisconsin had more votes than registered voters Pants on Fire! This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more. | [
"106698-proof-10-8b5910c23f09868e22122982e4060241.jpeg"
]
|
'I've passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because ... he hasn't passed any. | Contradiction | The coronavirus is affecting nearly all aspects of our lives, but the wheels of democracy grind on. Milwaukee County voters will still (at this point) be tasked April 7, 2020 with choosing a new county executive - and state Rep. David Crowley says voters should factor in how effective he and state Sen. Chris Larson have been as lawmakers. In a March 11, 2020, debate on WISN-TV, both Milwaukee Democrats were asked what sets them apart from their opponent. Crowley said this: 'The biggest difference is that I've actually been able to be effective in the state Legislature,' he said. 'I've passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because if I'm not mistaken he hasn't passed any.' Is he right? It turns out that - just like deciding whether Minnesota or Wisconsin has the most lakes - it's all about how you define the term. Crowley's definition Bills passed is an interesting place for Crowley to plant his political flag, given that neither he nor Larson has been exactly prolific. Larson has been in office since 2011, and Crowley since 2017. Both the Assembly and Senate have been under Republican control since 2011, meaning slim odds for bills from Crowley, Larson or any other Democrat. Spokesman Garren Randolph said Crowley's claim referred to bills signed into law on which the legislators were the 'lead author.' Bills can originate in either the Assembly or the Senate, and they must have at least one author or sponsor in each chamber. Other lawmakers in favor of the legislation can also sign on as coauthors or cosponsors. Crowley here is referring to only the first author in the originating house. By that tally, Crowley comes out ahead: 1-0. He was the lead sponsor on a bill enacted in April 2018 that provided a $210,000 grant for a nonprofit organization to set up a website and phone system to provide referrals for community-based services and crisis intervention. It passed unanimously in both chambers. The grant continued an existing program administered by 2-1-1 Wisconsin. So it didn't create anything new - but it was a bill, and it was authored by Crowley, and it passed. Larson, indeed, has not been the lead author on any bills passed into law. The state's definition But Crowley's definition is narrower than the authorship criteria used by the state. The nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau maintains an 'author index' of all legislation. The bureau's requirement for authorship is established by a Joint Rule of the Legislature. It says lawmakers are listed as the author if they are one of the first two authors in the originating house or the first cosponsor in the other house. By that criteria, both Crowley and Larson have passed three bills into law, according to the author indexes from the 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013 and 2011 sessions. Here those bills are with their official description: Crowley AB779 - the referral grant referenced above (2017 session) AB780 - Relating to notice to a school of a permanency review or hearing, notice to a school district of a foster home or group home license or out-of-home care placement, and transfer of pupil records (2017) SB99- Relating to venue requirements for domestic abuse, child abuse, and harassment cases (2017) Larson SB700 - Relating to creating a fee schedule for certain laboratories (2019) SB99 - Relating to designating and marking the Richard A. Grobschmidt Memorial Bridge (2017) SB512 - Relating to deposits on the sale of certain lead acid batteries (2013) | Our ruling Crowley claimed he has 'passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because ... he hasn't passed any.' Crowley' staff leaned on a narrow definition of authorship - only the first author in the chamber where the bill originated. If we consider authorship as being the person primarily responsible for a bill, Crowley has a point. But his claim didn't specify such a strict definition, and he's referring to a subject where the state already has an official definition. Under the state standard, both Crowley and Larson have passed three bills. We define Mostly False as having an element of truth but ignoring critical facts that would give a different impression. And that's how we rate Crowley's claim. | [
"106699-proof-09-2f0a08a0d9451bc7963d7dedc85ba0df.jpg"
]
|
'I've passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because ... he hasn't passed any. | Contradiction | The coronavirus is affecting nearly all aspects of our lives, but the wheels of democracy grind on. Milwaukee County voters will still (at this point) be tasked April 7, 2020 with choosing a new county executive - and state Rep. David Crowley says voters should factor in how effective he and state Sen. Chris Larson have been as lawmakers. In a March 11, 2020, debate on WISN-TV, both Milwaukee Democrats were asked what sets them apart from their opponent. Crowley said this: 'The biggest difference is that I've actually been able to be effective in the state Legislature,' he said. 'I've passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because if I'm not mistaken he hasn't passed any.' Is he right? It turns out that - just like deciding whether Minnesota or Wisconsin has the most lakes - it's all about how you define the term. Crowley's definition Bills passed is an interesting place for Crowley to plant his political flag, given that neither he nor Larson has been exactly prolific. Larson has been in office since 2011, and Crowley since 2017. Both the Assembly and Senate have been under Republican control since 2011, meaning slim odds for bills from Crowley, Larson or any other Democrat. Spokesman Garren Randolph said Crowley's claim referred to bills signed into law on which the legislators were the 'lead author.' Bills can originate in either the Assembly or the Senate, and they must have at least one author or sponsor in each chamber. Other lawmakers in favor of the legislation can also sign on as coauthors or cosponsors. Crowley here is referring to only the first author in the originating house. By that tally, Crowley comes out ahead: 1-0. He was the lead sponsor on a bill enacted in April 2018 that provided a $210,000 grant for a nonprofit organization to set up a website and phone system to provide referrals for community-based services and crisis intervention. It passed unanimously in both chambers. The grant continued an existing program administered by 2-1-1 Wisconsin. So it didn't create anything new - but it was a bill, and it was authored by Crowley, and it passed. Larson, indeed, has not been the lead author on any bills passed into law. The state's definition But Crowley's definition is narrower than the authorship criteria used by the state. The nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau maintains an 'author index' of all legislation. The bureau's requirement for authorship is established by a Joint Rule of the Legislature. It says lawmakers are listed as the author if they are one of the first two authors in the originating house or the first cosponsor in the other house. By that criteria, both Crowley and Larson have passed three bills into law, according to the author indexes from the 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013 and 2011 sessions. Here those bills are with their official description: Crowley AB779 - the referral grant referenced above (2017 session) AB780 - Relating to notice to a school of a permanency review or hearing, notice to a school district of a foster home or group home license or out-of-home care placement, and transfer of pupil records (2017) SB99- Relating to venue requirements for domestic abuse, child abuse, and harassment cases (2017) Larson SB700 - Relating to creating a fee schedule for certain laboratories (2019) SB99 - Relating to designating and marking the Richard A. Grobschmidt Memorial Bridge (2017) SB512 - Relating to deposits on the sale of certain lead acid batteries (2013) | Our ruling Crowley claimed he has 'passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because ... he hasn't passed any.' Crowley' staff leaned on a narrow definition of authorship - only the first author in the chamber where the bill originated. If we consider authorship as being the person primarily responsible for a bill, Crowley has a point. But his claim didn't specify such a strict definition, and he's referring to a subject where the state already has an official definition. Under the state standard, both Crowley and Larson have passed three bills. We define Mostly False as having an element of truth but ignoring critical facts that would give a different impression. And that's how we rate Crowley's claim. | [
"106699-proof-09-2f0a08a0d9451bc7963d7dedc85ba0df.jpg"
]
|
'I've passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because ... he hasn't passed any. | Contradiction | The coronavirus is affecting nearly all aspects of our lives, but the wheels of democracy grind on. Milwaukee County voters will still (at this point) be tasked April 7, 2020 with choosing a new county executive - and state Rep. David Crowley says voters should factor in how effective he and state Sen. Chris Larson have been as lawmakers. In a March 11, 2020, debate on WISN-TV, both Milwaukee Democrats were asked what sets them apart from their opponent. Crowley said this: 'The biggest difference is that I've actually been able to be effective in the state Legislature,' he said. 'I've passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because if I'm not mistaken he hasn't passed any.' Is he right? It turns out that - just like deciding whether Minnesota or Wisconsin has the most lakes - it's all about how you define the term. Crowley's definition Bills passed is an interesting place for Crowley to plant his political flag, given that neither he nor Larson has been exactly prolific. Larson has been in office since 2011, and Crowley since 2017. Both the Assembly and Senate have been under Republican control since 2011, meaning slim odds for bills from Crowley, Larson or any other Democrat. Spokesman Garren Randolph said Crowley's claim referred to bills signed into law on which the legislators were the 'lead author.' Bills can originate in either the Assembly or the Senate, and they must have at least one author or sponsor in each chamber. Other lawmakers in favor of the legislation can also sign on as coauthors or cosponsors. Crowley here is referring to only the first author in the originating house. By that tally, Crowley comes out ahead: 1-0. He was the lead sponsor on a bill enacted in April 2018 that provided a $210,000 grant for a nonprofit organization to set up a website and phone system to provide referrals for community-based services and crisis intervention. It passed unanimously in both chambers. The grant continued an existing program administered by 2-1-1 Wisconsin. So it didn't create anything new - but it was a bill, and it was authored by Crowley, and it passed. Larson, indeed, has not been the lead author on any bills passed into law. The state's definition But Crowley's definition is narrower than the authorship criteria used by the state. The nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau maintains an 'author index' of all legislation. The bureau's requirement for authorship is established by a Joint Rule of the Legislature. It says lawmakers are listed as the author if they are one of the first two authors in the originating house or the first cosponsor in the other house. By that criteria, both Crowley and Larson have passed three bills into law, according to the author indexes from the 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013 and 2011 sessions. Here those bills are with their official description: Crowley AB779 - the referral grant referenced above (2017 session) AB780 - Relating to notice to a school of a permanency review or hearing, notice to a school district of a foster home or group home license or out-of-home care placement, and transfer of pupil records (2017) SB99- Relating to venue requirements for domestic abuse, child abuse, and harassment cases (2017) Larson SB700 - Relating to creating a fee schedule for certain laboratories (2019) SB99 - Relating to designating and marking the Richard A. Grobschmidt Memorial Bridge (2017) SB512 - Relating to deposits on the sale of certain lead acid batteries (2013) | Our ruling Crowley claimed he has 'passed more bills than Sen. Larson has, because ... he hasn't passed any.' Crowley' staff leaned on a narrow definition of authorship - only the first author in the chamber where the bill originated. If we consider authorship as being the person primarily responsible for a bill, Crowley has a point. But his claim didn't specify such a strict definition, and he's referring to a subject where the state already has an official definition. Under the state standard, both Crowley and Larson have passed three bills. We define Mostly False as having an element of truth but ignoring critical facts that would give a different impression. And that's how we rate Crowley's claim. | [
"106699-proof-09-2f0a08a0d9451bc7963d7dedc85ba0df.jpg"
]
|
'I never called John (McCain) a loser. | Contradiction | An article in the Atlantic about President Donald Trump's private remarks about service members and veterans took social media by storm the moment it was published on Sept. 3. Trump aggressively pushed back, rejecting the article's conclusion that he had, on multiple occasions, disparaged those serving in the military, particularly service members who had been wounded or killed. One of the claims in the article, which is based on anonymous sources, was about Trump's private remarks about the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Trump and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee often tangled, including over McCain's pivotal vote against a bill that would have overturned much of the Affordable Care Act. The article by Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg reads: 'Trump remained fixated on McCain, one of the few prominent Republicans to continue criticizing him after he won the nomination. When McCain died, in August 2018, Trump told his senior staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge of this event, 'We're not going to support that loser's funeral,' and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. 'What the f--- are we doing that for? Guy was a f---ing loser,' the president told aides.' After the article was published, Trump took to Twitter to reject its reporting, including what he said about McCain. Over three linked tweets, Trump wrote, 'I was never a big fan of John McCain, disagreed with him on many things including ridiculous endless wars and the lack of success he had in dealing with the VA and our great Vets, but the lowering of our Nations American Flags, and the first class funeral he was given by our Country, had to be approved by me, as President, & I did so without hesitation or complaint. Quite the contrary, I felt it was well deserved. I even sent Air Force One to bring his body, in casket, from Arizona to Washington. It was my honor to do so. Also, I never called John a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES. This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!' ....John a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES. This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020 Here, we'll focus on Trump's assertion that he 'never called (McCain) a loser.' The reality is that Trump did say that about McCain in a widely noted public event in 2015. The event in question was a family leadership summit in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2015. Here's the full video, with the remarks in question coming at about the 5:10 mark. After Trump recalled McCain saying something that Trump considered an insult to him and his supporters, 'I said, 'Somebody should run against McCain,' who has been, in my opinion, not so hot. And I supported him for president! I raised a million dollars for him. That's a lot of money! I supported him. He lost. He let us down. But he lost. So I never liked him much after that, because I don't like losers.' Amid audience laughter, the moderator, Republican pollster Frank Luntz, then interjected, 'But he's a war hero!' Trump responded, 'He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.' Later that day, Trump retweeted, with seeming approval, a web post headlined 'Donald Trump: John McCain Is 'A Loser,'' that recapped his exchange at the summit. Via @fitsnews: 'Donald Trump: John McCain Is 'A Loser'' http://t.co/sgiETvdUqi- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2015 Neither the White House nor Trump's campaign responded to an inquiry for this article. | Our ruling Trump tweeted, 'I never called John (McCain) a loser.' That's false. He called McCain a loser at a televised event in 2015 and then, later that day, tweeted out a web post recapping the event. We rate the statement Pants on Fire! | [
"106713-proof-19-05af534cd6dab82ac3a2af1d5c971d65.jpg"
]
|
'I never called John (McCain) a loser. | Contradiction | An article in the Atlantic about President Donald Trump's private remarks about service members and veterans took social media by storm the moment it was published on Sept. 3. Trump aggressively pushed back, rejecting the article's conclusion that he had, on multiple occasions, disparaged those serving in the military, particularly service members who had been wounded or killed. One of the claims in the article, which is based on anonymous sources, was about Trump's private remarks about the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Trump and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee often tangled, including over McCain's pivotal vote against a bill that would have overturned much of the Affordable Care Act. The article by Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg reads: 'Trump remained fixated on McCain, one of the few prominent Republicans to continue criticizing him after he won the nomination. When McCain died, in August 2018, Trump told his senior staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge of this event, 'We're not going to support that loser's funeral,' and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. 'What the f--- are we doing that for? Guy was a f---ing loser,' the president told aides.' After the article was published, Trump took to Twitter to reject its reporting, including what he said about McCain. Over three linked tweets, Trump wrote, 'I was never a big fan of John McCain, disagreed with him on many things including ridiculous endless wars and the lack of success he had in dealing with the VA and our great Vets, but the lowering of our Nations American Flags, and the first class funeral he was given by our Country, had to be approved by me, as President, & I did so without hesitation or complaint. Quite the contrary, I felt it was well deserved. I even sent Air Force One to bring his body, in casket, from Arizona to Washington. It was my honor to do so. Also, I never called John a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES. This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!' ....John a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES. This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020 Here, we'll focus on Trump's assertion that he 'never called (McCain) a loser.' The reality is that Trump did say that about McCain in a widely noted public event in 2015. The event in question was a family leadership summit in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2015. Here's the full video, with the remarks in question coming at about the 5:10 mark. After Trump recalled McCain saying something that Trump considered an insult to him and his supporters, 'I said, 'Somebody should run against McCain,' who has been, in my opinion, not so hot. And I supported him for president! I raised a million dollars for him. That's a lot of money! I supported him. He lost. He let us down. But he lost. So I never liked him much after that, because I don't like losers.' Amid audience laughter, the moderator, Republican pollster Frank Luntz, then interjected, 'But he's a war hero!' Trump responded, 'He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.' Later that day, Trump retweeted, with seeming approval, a web post headlined 'Donald Trump: John McCain Is 'A Loser,'' that recapped his exchange at the summit. Via @fitsnews: 'Donald Trump: John McCain Is 'A Loser'' http://t.co/sgiETvdUqi- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2015 Neither the White House nor Trump's campaign responded to an inquiry for this article. | Our ruling Trump tweeted, 'I never called John (McCain) a loser.' That's false. He called McCain a loser at a televised event in 2015 and then, later that day, tweeted out a web post recapping the event. We rate the statement Pants on Fire! | [
"106713-proof-19-05af534cd6dab82ac3a2af1d5c971d65.jpg"
]
|
Says the toddler shown in a photo clinging to a police officer was found wandering, alone and barefoot, looking for his mother amid protests in Philadelphia. | Contradiction | Multiple Facebook pages have been sharing a photo of a toddler clinging to a female police officer alongside the false claim that the boy was rescued by law enforcement when he was found wandering alone and shoeless, looking for his mother amid the protests in Philadelphia. 'A CHILD WITH NO SHOES IN THE MIDST OF A CATASTROPHE FINDS SAFETY IN THE ARMS OF A WOMAN IN BLUE,' reads a post by a page called Sheriff Deputies. 'A child left in the streets of Philadelphia during the looting, robbing and mayhem, wandering aimlessly, looking for his Mommy with no socks or shoes,' the post continues. 'But through all the mayhem, with broken glass all around, fires being set, and businesses getting vandalized, finds hope and love. One small beautiful baby boy, in the midst of this insane horror and madness, somehow finds safety in the arms of an Angel shielding him with her body.' That's not what happened. Officers from the Philadelphia Police Department pulled the barefoot toddler from the backseat of an SUV after police swarmed the vehicle, smashed its windows and removed two people, one being the boy's mother. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Unrest in Philadelphia Protesters and Philadelphia police have clashed for days following the deadly police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man who was armed with a knife and whose family said he was mentally ill and had called for an ambulance. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets following the shooting, resulting in violent clashes with police, looted businesses and injuries to both law enforcement and protesters, and prompting the arrival of the National Guard. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported about the incident with the SUV, which took place the night Wallace was killed. The report is based on a video taken by a bystander, which shows several people running in the street, before about 15 officers swarm the vehicle, yelling for the driver to get out. The video shows at least two officers smashing the windows, before pulling out the driver and beating her with a baton. 'Officers then pull a second adult out of the vehicle, and then seconds later appeared to remove the child from the backseat,' the newspaper reported. 'An Inquirer photographer captured an image of police holding a young boy at the scene at the same time, and a freelance photographer captured another image of police pulling that child out of the vehicle that was bashed.' According to the Washington Post, 28-year-old Rickia Young borrowed her sister's car, put her 2-year-old son in the back seat, and drove across town to pick up her nephew from a friend's house. The incident happened when they were on their way back home and had turned onto a street where protesters and police had clashed. Police officers told Young to turn around, according to one of the lawyers representing her, and as she tried to make a three-point turn, they surrounded the car. Young was arrested and later released without charges. The police department told the Inquirer that its internal affairs unit had opened an investigation into the officers' actions. The National Fraternal Order of Police, the country's largest police union, posted the image of the police officer holding the toddler on social media. 'This child was lost during the violent riots in Philadelphia,' the union said in a tweet and Facebook post that have since been deleted, 'wandering around barefoot in an area that was experiencing complete lawlessness. The only thing this Philadelphia police officer cared about in that moment was protecting this child.' The Inquirer reached out to the Fraternal Order of Police about its post. The union didn't respond but the newspaper said the post was deleted about 30 minutes later. Riley H. Ross III, one of the attorneys representing Young in a civil rights case stemming from the clash, denounced the union's post on Twitter, calling it 'a lie.' 1/ This post by @GLFOP is a lie. My firm @MinceyFitzRoss represents this boy and his mother. This photo was taken moments after police attacked their vehicle, busted out the windows, ripped the mother from her car and assaulted her. pic.twitter.com/6dmDfoBe2B- Riley H. Ross III (@AttorneyRoss) October 30, 2020 | Our ruling Facebook posts say a toddler, seen in a photo clinging to a police officer, was rescued by law enforcement after he was found wandering alone and shoeless, looking for his mother amid the protests in Philadelphia. This is wrong. The boy was not found wandering the streets. He was pulled from the backseat of an SUV after police swarmed the vehicle and arrested his mother. We rate it False. | []
|
Says the toddler shown in a photo clinging to a police officer was found wandering, alone and barefoot, looking for his mother amid protests in Philadelphia. | Contradiction | Multiple Facebook pages have been sharing a photo of a toddler clinging to a female police officer alongside the false claim that the boy was rescued by law enforcement when he was found wandering alone and shoeless, looking for his mother amid the protests in Philadelphia. 'A CHILD WITH NO SHOES IN THE MIDST OF A CATASTROPHE FINDS SAFETY IN THE ARMS OF A WOMAN IN BLUE,' reads a post by a page called Sheriff Deputies. 'A child left in the streets of Philadelphia during the looting, robbing and mayhem, wandering aimlessly, looking for his Mommy with no socks or shoes,' the post continues. 'But through all the mayhem, with broken glass all around, fires being set, and businesses getting vandalized, finds hope and love. One small beautiful baby boy, in the midst of this insane horror and madness, somehow finds safety in the arms of an Angel shielding him with her body.' That's not what happened. Officers from the Philadelphia Police Department pulled the barefoot toddler from the backseat of an SUV after police swarmed the vehicle, smashed its windows and removed two people, one being the boy's mother. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Unrest in Philadelphia Protesters and Philadelphia police have clashed for days following the deadly police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man who was armed with a knife and whose family said he was mentally ill and had called for an ambulance. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets following the shooting, resulting in violent clashes with police, looted businesses and injuries to both law enforcement and protesters, and prompting the arrival of the National Guard. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported about the incident with the SUV, which took place the night Wallace was killed. The report is based on a video taken by a bystander, which shows several people running in the street, before about 15 officers swarm the vehicle, yelling for the driver to get out. The video shows at least two officers smashing the windows, before pulling out the driver and beating her with a baton. 'Officers then pull a second adult out of the vehicle, and then seconds later appeared to remove the child from the backseat,' the newspaper reported. 'An Inquirer photographer captured an image of police holding a young boy at the scene at the same time, and a freelance photographer captured another image of police pulling that child out of the vehicle that was bashed.' According to the Washington Post, 28-year-old Rickia Young borrowed her sister's car, put her 2-year-old son in the back seat, and drove across town to pick up her nephew from a friend's house. The incident happened when they were on their way back home and had turned onto a street where protesters and police had clashed. Police officers told Young to turn around, according to one of the lawyers representing her, and as she tried to make a three-point turn, they surrounded the car. Young was arrested and later released without charges. The police department told the Inquirer that its internal affairs unit had opened an investigation into the officers' actions. The National Fraternal Order of Police, the country's largest police union, posted the image of the police officer holding the toddler on social media. 'This child was lost during the violent riots in Philadelphia,' the union said in a tweet and Facebook post that have since been deleted, 'wandering around barefoot in an area that was experiencing complete lawlessness. The only thing this Philadelphia police officer cared about in that moment was protecting this child.' The Inquirer reached out to the Fraternal Order of Police about its post. The union didn't respond but the newspaper said the post was deleted about 30 minutes later. Riley H. Ross III, one of the attorneys representing Young in a civil rights case stemming from the clash, denounced the union's post on Twitter, calling it 'a lie.' 1/ This post by @GLFOP is a lie. My firm @MinceyFitzRoss represents this boy and his mother. This photo was taken moments after police attacked their vehicle, busted out the windows, ripped the mother from her car and assaulted her. pic.twitter.com/6dmDfoBe2B- Riley H. Ross III (@AttorneyRoss) October 30, 2020 | Our ruling Facebook posts say a toddler, seen in a photo clinging to a police officer, was rescued by law enforcement after he was found wandering alone and shoeless, looking for his mother amid the protests in Philadelphia. This is wrong. The boy was not found wandering the streets. He was pulled from the backseat of an SUV after police swarmed the vehicle and arrested his mother. We rate it False. | []
|
Says the Vatican reports that Pope Francis tested negative for the coronavirus before a second test came back positive. | Contradiction | A refurbished rumor that Pope Francis has contracted the coronavirus as he battles a cold is going around the Internet. We recently fact-checked a video that claimed the pope and two of his aides tested positive for the coronavirus and that it was confirmed by the Vatican. None of that is true, and the Vatican denied the claims. Now, one blog is pushing an altered version of the account, quoting an Italian newspaper as saying that the 83-year-old Catholic leader first tested negative for the virus before a second test came back positive. The story features recent photos of Pope Francis coughing and blowing his nose and claims: 'Pope Francis has tested positive for coronavirus after he fell ill in Italy and was forced to cancel a religious retreat near Rome ... The first results for Covid-19 came back negative, and second came positive, according to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero this morning.' This account is also false. The story was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Pope Francis recently canceled some engagements and a Lent retreat after he was seen coughing and sneezing during an Ash Wednesday mass in Rome, fueling false rumors that he has the coronavirus. On March 3, Il Messaggero reported that the pope had been tested for the virus as a precaution and that the result was negative - something the Vatican has not officially confirmed - but the story doesn't say a second test was administered or that the pope tested positive. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni didn't confirm or deny the Messaggero report, according to the Associated Press, but repeated that the pope had been diagnosed with a cold and that it was 'running its course, without symptoms linked to other pathologies.' Bruni told Reuters he had no comment on the report. The pope may have tested negative for the virus, but there is no evidence that he was tested more than once, or that a second result came back positive. We rate this False. | We rate this False. | []
|
Says the Vatican reports that Pope Francis tested negative for the coronavirus before a second test came back positive. | Contradiction | A refurbished rumor that Pope Francis has contracted the coronavirus as he battles a cold is going around the Internet. We recently fact-checked a video that claimed the pope and two of his aides tested positive for the coronavirus and that it was confirmed by the Vatican. None of that is true, and the Vatican denied the claims. Now, one blog is pushing an altered version of the account, quoting an Italian newspaper as saying that the 83-year-old Catholic leader first tested negative for the virus before a second test came back positive. The story features recent photos of Pope Francis coughing and blowing his nose and claims: 'Pope Francis has tested positive for coronavirus after he fell ill in Italy and was forced to cancel a religious retreat near Rome ... The first results for Covid-19 came back negative, and second came positive, according to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero this morning.' This account is also false. The story was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Pope Francis recently canceled some engagements and a Lent retreat after he was seen coughing and sneezing during an Ash Wednesday mass in Rome, fueling false rumors that he has the coronavirus. On March 3, Il Messaggero reported that the pope had been tested for the virus as a precaution and that the result was negative - something the Vatican has not officially confirmed - but the story doesn't say a second test was administered or that the pope tested positive. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni didn't confirm or deny the Messaggero report, according to the Associated Press, but repeated that the pope had been diagnosed with a cold and that it was 'running its course, without symptoms linked to other pathologies.' Bruni told Reuters he had no comment on the report. The pope may have tested negative for the virus, but there is no evidence that he was tested more than once, or that a second result came back positive. We rate this False. | We rate this False. | []
|
Says the Vatican reports that Pope Francis tested negative for the coronavirus before a second test came back positive. | Contradiction | A refurbished rumor that Pope Francis has contracted the coronavirus as he battles a cold is going around the Internet. We recently fact-checked a video that claimed the pope and two of his aides tested positive for the coronavirus and that it was confirmed by the Vatican. None of that is true, and the Vatican denied the claims. Now, one blog is pushing an altered version of the account, quoting an Italian newspaper as saying that the 83-year-old Catholic leader first tested negative for the virus before a second test came back positive. The story features recent photos of Pope Francis coughing and blowing his nose and claims: 'Pope Francis has tested positive for coronavirus after he fell ill in Italy and was forced to cancel a religious retreat near Rome ... The first results for Covid-19 came back negative, and second came positive, according to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero this morning.' This account is also false. The story was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Pope Francis recently canceled some engagements and a Lent retreat after he was seen coughing and sneezing during an Ash Wednesday mass in Rome, fueling false rumors that he has the coronavirus. On March 3, Il Messaggero reported that the pope had been tested for the virus as a precaution and that the result was negative - something the Vatican has not officially confirmed - but the story doesn't say a second test was administered or that the pope tested positive. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni didn't confirm or deny the Messaggero report, according to the Associated Press, but repeated that the pope had been diagnosed with a cold and that it was 'running its course, without symptoms linked to other pathologies.' Bruni told Reuters he had no comment on the report. The pope may have tested negative for the virus, but there is no evidence that he was tested more than once, or that a second result came back positive. We rate this False. | We rate this False. | []
|
These photos show Jacob Blake posing with a gun. | Contradiction | A grid of four images being shared on social media show someone posing with a gun, and in three of the photos, aiming it at the camera. 'I'm not judging,' the post says, 'I'm just showing you pictures of Jacob Blake.' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But these are not pictures of Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was shot and partially paralyzed by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 23, while his children watched from a nearby vehicle. First of all, the person in the images doesn't resemble Blake. Second, they previously spread on social media in connection with the death of 16-year-old Pierre Loury, who was shot by a police officer in 2016 in Chicago. We couldn't find credible sources confirming that the person in these photos is Loury, either. His Facebook account now only shows two photos, including one that says 'R.I.P.' A different photo the Chicago Tribune published from Loury's Facebook page in 2016 shows him posing with a gun. His mother 'said the photo was taken while he was promoting a rap song, nothing more,' the caption says. We rate this Facebook post False. | We rate this Facebook post False. | []
|
Says CNN reported that Joe Biden authorized 'a U.S. intervention in Haiti after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. | Contradiction | An image of what looks like a screenshot of a CNN news story is being shared on social media with this headline: 'Haiti President Jovenel Moïse assassinated in attack on his residence. U.S Troops on their way.' The image makes it look like the story was updated at 3:41 p.m. EDT on July 7. The text below an image of Moïse and an image of what appear to be members of the U.S. Air Force goes on to say that 'President Joe Biden has authorized this afternoon a U.S. intervention in Haiti after the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse who was gunned down last night at his residence. ... The commanding officer of all U.S. forces, General Micheal X Garrett, confirmed that an initial force of 10.000 US soldiers will be sent.' A post sharing this screenshot was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We searched CNN's website for the headline in the screenshot and didn't find it, but there are more clues that this image doesn't show an authentic CNN story. First, the font CNN uses for its headlines is different than what appears in the Facebook post. You can see an example in another story CNN published about the assassinaton on July 8 with no mention of Biden dispatching U.S. troops to Haiti. Second, CNN articles have bylines and there are none in the Facebook post. Third, the style of the time and date the story was published or updated is different in the post than in other CNN stories. Fourth, the story text in the post is in a different font than other CNN articles and fifth, the text in the post has typos and errors. Gen. Michael X. Garrett - not Micheal, as the post says - is the commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command. After Moïse was assassinated on July 7, Biden issued a statement condemning the 'heinous attack' and said that the 'United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti.' He did not say he was sending 10,000 troops there. In the days since this fake CNN headline was published, Haiti has asked for U.S. troops to help stabilize the country in the wake of the killing. In a story updated on July 13, the New York Times reported that officials in the Biden administration have thus far 'expressed caution about any deployment to Haiti.' We rate this Facebook post False. | We rate this Facebook post False. | []
|
'There was no effort' to get American experts into China after it announced the coronavirus, and 'we had one person in-country (and Trump) pulled him out of the country. | Contradiction | Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has targeted what he sees as a couple of key failures by President Donald Trump that made the coronavirus crisis worse. In a CNN virtual town hall, Biden talked about the early days as the virus spread from China. 'I said, among others, that, you know, you should get into China, get our experts there, we have the best in the world, get them in so we know what's actually happening,' Biden said March 27. 'There was no effort to do that. He didn't put any pressure on (Chinese President) Xi. I guess because of his trade deal, which wasn't much of a deal. And in addition to that, what happened was, we had one person in-country who was working. He pulled him out of the country.' There are two claims to sort out: that Trump made no effort to get American epidemiologists into China, and that he pulled out the one person who was working there. Biden's first claim distorts the American response, and the second skips over other changes that took place at the same time. China resisted all outsiders The words of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Jan. 28 undercut Biden's sweeping statement that 'there was no effort' to get experts into China. Azar said that by Jan. 6, about a week after China confirmed the existence of a new virus, 'we offered to send a CDC team to China.' 'I reiterated that offer when I spoke to China's Minister of Health on Monday (Jan. 27), and it was reiterated again via the World Health Organization today,' Azar said. 'We are urging China: More cooperation and transparency are the most important steps you can take toward a more effective response.' There is no question that China resisted the presence of outside experts. The World Health Organization was working its own medical diplomacy to get more visibility into the China situation. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with Xi on Jan. 28 in Beijing. That was a month into the pandemic and while he won approval for the deployment of a WHO team, that didn't happen until Feb. 10. The WHO group included some Americans, but in a statement, the Health and Human Services Departments said the Chinese 'limited the ability and timing for CDC staff to participate in the WHO joint mission.' Biden's campaign staff said that Trump himself should have pressed the issue in his conversations with Xi. We asked the White House press office if he had and got no comment. Regardless, Azar, a high-ranking member of the cabinet, did tell his Chinese counterpart that the United States was ready to provide people. In a Jan. 27 tweet, Trump said he had broadly done the same. 'We have offered China and President Xi any help that is necessary. Our experts are extraordinary,' Trump said. Removing the one person in China Biden said Trump pulled the 'one person' in China 'who was working.' This, his staff said, referred to the July 2019 departure of an American epidemiologist from the CDC's China office. (The CDC maintains offices in countries around the world. The one in China dates back to 2003.) Reuters reported that the CDC epidemiologist, Linda Quick, would have been in a position to help Chinese experts respond to the emerging disease precisely because she was embedded in China's CDC to train Chinese specialists. The CDC's website shows that the U.S. staff in China went from eight in March 2019 to three in December 2019. The change was driven by a shift in the U.S. strategy to combat HIV/AIDS, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said. 'The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief under the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator moved to a regional model in this region and based on the epidemic in China to date, changes were made to the existing footprint,' the department's statement said. In July 2019, the CDC said it would complete its PEPFAR-funded work in China that year. The department's statement also said that CDC began 'scaling up' before the outbreak. That didn't necessarily mean additional U.S. staff. The program hires more Chinese staffers than American ones. | Our ruling Biden said that Trump made 'no effort' to get American experts into China and pulled the 'one person' the U.S. had on the ground out of China. Trump's personal role is unclear, but his Health and Human Services secretary did make the effort to get U.S. experts inside. The department reached out to China in the first week of January, and secretary Azar asked his Chinese counterpart again in late January. China resisted outsiders, both from the U.S. and WHO. Biden's assertion that Trump pulled the 'one person' out of China has more substance, but is not as straight-forward as he made it sound. An American CDC epidemiologist left in July and was not replaced. The overall American staff went from eight down to three. According to the Health and Human Services Department, the staff reduction was mainly driven by changes in the U.S. strategy to reduce HIV/AIDS. Biden made it sound as though everyone left, but some CDC staff remained. The first claim is, at best, exaggerated, and the second is murky on the details. We rate Biden's attack Mostly False. | [
"106763-proof-33-5feb9cf98c1dfad568815a252b4854d3.jpg"
]
|
'There was no effort' to get American experts into China after it announced the coronavirus, and 'we had one person in-country (and Trump) pulled him out of the country. | Contradiction | Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has targeted what he sees as a couple of key failures by President Donald Trump that made the coronavirus crisis worse. In a CNN virtual town hall, Biden talked about the early days as the virus spread from China. 'I said, among others, that, you know, you should get into China, get our experts there, we have the best in the world, get them in so we know what's actually happening,' Biden said March 27. 'There was no effort to do that. He didn't put any pressure on (Chinese President) Xi. I guess because of his trade deal, which wasn't much of a deal. And in addition to that, what happened was, we had one person in-country who was working. He pulled him out of the country.' There are two claims to sort out: that Trump made no effort to get American epidemiologists into China, and that he pulled out the one person who was working there. Biden's first claim distorts the American response, and the second skips over other changes that took place at the same time. China resisted all outsiders The words of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Jan. 28 undercut Biden's sweeping statement that 'there was no effort' to get experts into China. Azar said that by Jan. 6, about a week after China confirmed the existence of a new virus, 'we offered to send a CDC team to China.' 'I reiterated that offer when I spoke to China's Minister of Health on Monday (Jan. 27), and it was reiterated again via the World Health Organization today,' Azar said. 'We are urging China: More cooperation and transparency are the most important steps you can take toward a more effective response.' There is no question that China resisted the presence of outside experts. The World Health Organization was working its own medical diplomacy to get more visibility into the China situation. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with Xi on Jan. 28 in Beijing. That was a month into the pandemic and while he won approval for the deployment of a WHO team, that didn't happen until Feb. 10. The WHO group included some Americans, but in a statement, the Health and Human Services Departments said the Chinese 'limited the ability and timing for CDC staff to participate in the WHO joint mission.' Biden's campaign staff said that Trump himself should have pressed the issue in his conversations with Xi. We asked the White House press office if he had and got no comment. Regardless, Azar, a high-ranking member of the cabinet, did tell his Chinese counterpart that the United States was ready to provide people. In a Jan. 27 tweet, Trump said he had broadly done the same. 'We have offered China and President Xi any help that is necessary. Our experts are extraordinary,' Trump said. Removing the one person in China Biden said Trump pulled the 'one person' in China 'who was working.' This, his staff said, referred to the July 2019 departure of an American epidemiologist from the CDC's China office. (The CDC maintains offices in countries around the world. The one in China dates back to 2003.) Reuters reported that the CDC epidemiologist, Linda Quick, would have been in a position to help Chinese experts respond to the emerging disease precisely because she was embedded in China's CDC to train Chinese specialists. The CDC's website shows that the U.S. staff in China went from eight in March 2019 to three in December 2019. The change was driven by a shift in the U.S. strategy to combat HIV/AIDS, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said. 'The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief under the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator moved to a regional model in this region and based on the epidemic in China to date, changes were made to the existing footprint,' the department's statement said. In July 2019, the CDC said it would complete its PEPFAR-funded work in China that year. The department's statement also said that CDC began 'scaling up' before the outbreak. That didn't necessarily mean additional U.S. staff. The program hires more Chinese staffers than American ones. | Our ruling Biden said that Trump made 'no effort' to get American experts into China and pulled the 'one person' the U.S. had on the ground out of China. Trump's personal role is unclear, but his Health and Human Services secretary did make the effort to get U.S. experts inside. The department reached out to China in the first week of January, and secretary Azar asked his Chinese counterpart again in late January. China resisted outsiders, both from the U.S. and WHO. Biden's assertion that Trump pulled the 'one person' out of China has more substance, but is not as straight-forward as he made it sound. An American CDC epidemiologist left in July and was not replaced. The overall American staff went from eight down to three. According to the Health and Human Services Department, the staff reduction was mainly driven by changes in the U.S. strategy to reduce HIV/AIDS. Biden made it sound as though everyone left, but some CDC staff remained. The first claim is, at best, exaggerated, and the second is murky on the details. We rate Biden's attack Mostly False. | [
"106763-proof-33-5feb9cf98c1dfad568815a252b4854d3.jpg"
]
|
'There was no effort' to get American experts into China after it announced the coronavirus, and 'we had one person in-country (and Trump) pulled him out of the country. | Contradiction | Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has targeted what he sees as a couple of key failures by President Donald Trump that made the coronavirus crisis worse. In a CNN virtual town hall, Biden talked about the early days as the virus spread from China. 'I said, among others, that, you know, you should get into China, get our experts there, we have the best in the world, get them in so we know what's actually happening,' Biden said March 27. 'There was no effort to do that. He didn't put any pressure on (Chinese President) Xi. I guess because of his trade deal, which wasn't much of a deal. And in addition to that, what happened was, we had one person in-country who was working. He pulled him out of the country.' There are two claims to sort out: that Trump made no effort to get American epidemiologists into China, and that he pulled out the one person who was working there. Biden's first claim distorts the American response, and the second skips over other changes that took place at the same time. China resisted all outsiders The words of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Jan. 28 undercut Biden's sweeping statement that 'there was no effort' to get experts into China. Azar said that by Jan. 6, about a week after China confirmed the existence of a new virus, 'we offered to send a CDC team to China.' 'I reiterated that offer when I spoke to China's Minister of Health on Monday (Jan. 27), and it was reiterated again via the World Health Organization today,' Azar said. 'We are urging China: More cooperation and transparency are the most important steps you can take toward a more effective response.' There is no question that China resisted the presence of outside experts. The World Health Organization was working its own medical diplomacy to get more visibility into the China situation. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with Xi on Jan. 28 in Beijing. That was a month into the pandemic and while he won approval for the deployment of a WHO team, that didn't happen until Feb. 10. The WHO group included some Americans, but in a statement, the Health and Human Services Departments said the Chinese 'limited the ability and timing for CDC staff to participate in the WHO joint mission.' Biden's campaign staff said that Trump himself should have pressed the issue in his conversations with Xi. We asked the White House press office if he had and got no comment. Regardless, Azar, a high-ranking member of the cabinet, did tell his Chinese counterpart that the United States was ready to provide people. In a Jan. 27 tweet, Trump said he had broadly done the same. 'We have offered China and President Xi any help that is necessary. Our experts are extraordinary,' Trump said. Removing the one person in China Biden said Trump pulled the 'one person' in China 'who was working.' This, his staff said, referred to the July 2019 departure of an American epidemiologist from the CDC's China office. (The CDC maintains offices in countries around the world. The one in China dates back to 2003.) Reuters reported that the CDC epidemiologist, Linda Quick, would have been in a position to help Chinese experts respond to the emerging disease precisely because she was embedded in China's CDC to train Chinese specialists. The CDC's website shows that the U.S. staff in China went from eight in March 2019 to three in December 2019. The change was driven by a shift in the U.S. strategy to combat HIV/AIDS, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said. 'The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief under the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator moved to a regional model in this region and based on the epidemic in China to date, changes were made to the existing footprint,' the department's statement said. In July 2019, the CDC said it would complete its PEPFAR-funded work in China that year. The department's statement also said that CDC began 'scaling up' before the outbreak. That didn't necessarily mean additional U.S. staff. The program hires more Chinese staffers than American ones. | Our ruling Biden said that Trump made 'no effort' to get American experts into China and pulled the 'one person' the U.S. had on the ground out of China. Trump's personal role is unclear, but his Health and Human Services secretary did make the effort to get U.S. experts inside. The department reached out to China in the first week of January, and secretary Azar asked his Chinese counterpart again in late January. China resisted outsiders, both from the U.S. and WHO. Biden's assertion that Trump pulled the 'one person' out of China has more substance, but is not as straight-forward as he made it sound. An American CDC epidemiologist left in July and was not replaced. The overall American staff went from eight down to three. According to the Health and Human Services Department, the staff reduction was mainly driven by changes in the U.S. strategy to reduce HIV/AIDS. Biden made it sound as though everyone left, but some CDC staff remained. The first claim is, at best, exaggerated, and the second is murky on the details. We rate Biden's attack Mostly False. | [
"106763-proof-33-5feb9cf98c1dfad568815a252b4854d3.jpg"
]
|
'Hillary Clinton hanged at GITMO. | Contradiction | A fantastical story recently appeared on a website familiar to the fact-checkers of PolitiFact. Real Raw News has published several stories that we've previously debunked, including about former President Donald Trump indicting Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a foiled Trump assassination, and Navy SEALs arresting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It's latest dispatch about Clinton claims that she was hanged on April 26 at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to the story, it was the culmination of an operation that started the night the SEALs arrested her. 'After a five-day tribunal at the world's most infamous detention center, a three-officer panel found Clinton guilty of murder, accessory to murder, treason, child trafficking, and other high crimes,' the story says. This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) News of Clinton's arrest, let alone killing, would be widely covered by the media. No such reports exist, nor credible evidence to support the idea that Clinton was hanged. The information in this blog post is completely baseless. In the days since her supposed execution, Clinton has been active on Twitter, including promoting the latest episode of her podcast, 'You and Me Both,' on April 27. The previous week, publishers Simon & Schuster and St. Martin's Press announced Clinton would co-author a thriller with her friend titled 'State of Terror.' Like that forthcoming novel, this blog post is a work of fiction. We rate it Pants on Fire! | We rate it Pants on Fire! | []
|
A photo shows sex traffickers using an abandoned child car seat to lure in victims. | Contradiction | Social media users continue to share posts claiming that sex traffickers are using abandoned car seats to lure in victims, even as local police and the organization behind the National Human Trafficking Hotline have said such claims are unfounded. Human trafficking is a legitimate threat that affects millions of people. But the photo of an empty child car seat sitting in a parking lot was not the tell-all that social media users were making it out to be. The photo appears to have originated with an Oct. 9 Facebook post. The poster wrote that the car seat was in the parking lot of a Walmart in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. 'Sex traffickers use this method to lure you in and snatch you up,' the poster claimed. An Oct. 9 Facebook post claimed sex traffickers were using an abandoned car seat to lure victims. The Facebook post was shared more than 700 times, and screenshots of it were flagged as part of the platform's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But the viral internet rumor exploded further online after a TikTok user warned about what she described as the latest 'trap' from sex traffickers. The video from Paige Marie Parker, who describes herself as a 'spiritual gardener' and now has more than 178,000 followers, was reported by Rolling Stone after it got 12.2 million views in just over a day. It is no longer available on TikTok, but PolitiFact found a copy of it online. 'So have you ever seen this type of car seat just out of nowhere?' Parker says in the video, as she points to a Facebook post from the Wilkesboro Police Department addressing the car seat photo and rumors. 'That's not an ordinary car seat. That's actually a trap.' 'That's actually a sex trafficking car seat,' Parker continues. 'No parent will ever leave a random car seat out there just to be out there. They want you to go up to the car seat and look around while they'll really snatch you really quick. It's a ploy. Please be safe out here ladies.' It's important for people to stay aware of their surroundings. Should you want to report or seek services related to a case of human trafficking, you can contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or email [email protected]. But the Wilkesboro Police Department statement that Parker highlighted in her video did not confirm that traffickers are using car seats to draw in victims; instead, it debunked the rumor. The department wrote that it had investigated the car seat photo from the original Facebook post, and that the backstory had nothing to do with sex trafficking. 'At no time was this incident deemed to be involved in any criminal activity,' the department concluded. The car seat was in the parking lot, the police said, because two Walmart customers purchased a new child car seat, then they removed their old one and left it there. Interim department chief Tommy Rhodes told the Associated Press that the police reviewed security footage of the events to determine what happened. 'If we for one second thought that was a sex trafficking ploy, we would be all over that,' Rhodes said. Polaris, the organization that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, said in its own statement that 'when narratives like the car seat myth go viral, it can do serious harm to actual trafficking survivors,' including by overwhelming anti-trafficking organization's limited resources to respond to tips. 'Recent rumors about sex traffickers using abandoned child car seats to lure victims are unfounded,' the Polaris statement said. A similar Facebook post claimed in September that 'empty baby car seats are being used as a lure to get you out of your car so you can be abducted or followed.' The post purported to show photos of a car seat left in a parking lot in Nashville. It was shared nearly 300,000 times. Other unsubstantiated internet rumors warning about human trafficking plots have taken off in the past. One rumor spread on Facebook in 2019 cautioned that sex traffickers were afixing zip ties to car door handles as a means of distracting victims. Another claim from 2019, amplified by the then-mayor of Baltimore, alleged that sex traffickers were driving white vans. More recently, supporters of the QAnon movement advanced evidence-free conspiracy theories that separately accused Walmart and Wayfair, an online furniture retailer, of using certain items as cover for selling and shipping children to pedophiles. | Our ruling Facebook posts claimed that a photo shows a plot by sex traffickers to use abandoned child car seats to lure in victims. Police investigated the photo of an abandoned car seat that inspired this internet rumor. They concluded that it was not associated with sex trafficking or other criminal activity. Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, called the rumor 'unfounded' and a 'myth.' We rate these claims False. | []
|
A photo shows sex traffickers using an abandoned child car seat to lure in victims. | Contradiction | Social media users continue to share posts claiming that sex traffickers are using abandoned car seats to lure in victims, even as local police and the organization behind the National Human Trafficking Hotline have said such claims are unfounded. Human trafficking is a legitimate threat that affects millions of people. But the photo of an empty child car seat sitting in a parking lot was not the tell-all that social media users were making it out to be. The photo appears to have originated with an Oct. 9 Facebook post. The poster wrote that the car seat was in the parking lot of a Walmart in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. 'Sex traffickers use this method to lure you in and snatch you up,' the poster claimed. An Oct. 9 Facebook post claimed sex traffickers were using an abandoned car seat to lure victims. The Facebook post was shared more than 700 times, and screenshots of it were flagged as part of the platform's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But the viral internet rumor exploded further online after a TikTok user warned about what she described as the latest 'trap' from sex traffickers. The video from Paige Marie Parker, who describes herself as a 'spiritual gardener' and now has more than 178,000 followers, was reported by Rolling Stone after it got 12.2 million views in just over a day. It is no longer available on TikTok, but PolitiFact found a copy of it online. 'So have you ever seen this type of car seat just out of nowhere?' Parker says in the video, as she points to a Facebook post from the Wilkesboro Police Department addressing the car seat photo and rumors. 'That's not an ordinary car seat. That's actually a trap.' 'That's actually a sex trafficking car seat,' Parker continues. 'No parent will ever leave a random car seat out there just to be out there. They want you to go up to the car seat and look around while they'll really snatch you really quick. It's a ploy. Please be safe out here ladies.' It's important for people to stay aware of their surroundings. Should you want to report or seek services related to a case of human trafficking, you can contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or email [email protected]. But the Wilkesboro Police Department statement that Parker highlighted in her video did not confirm that traffickers are using car seats to draw in victims; instead, it debunked the rumor. The department wrote that it had investigated the car seat photo from the original Facebook post, and that the backstory had nothing to do with sex trafficking. 'At no time was this incident deemed to be involved in any criminal activity,' the department concluded. The car seat was in the parking lot, the police said, because two Walmart customers purchased a new child car seat, then they removed their old one and left it there. Interim department chief Tommy Rhodes told the Associated Press that the police reviewed security footage of the events to determine what happened. 'If we for one second thought that was a sex trafficking ploy, we would be all over that,' Rhodes said. Polaris, the organization that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, said in its own statement that 'when narratives like the car seat myth go viral, it can do serious harm to actual trafficking survivors,' including by overwhelming anti-trafficking organization's limited resources to respond to tips. 'Recent rumors about sex traffickers using abandoned child car seats to lure victims are unfounded,' the Polaris statement said. A similar Facebook post claimed in September that 'empty baby car seats are being used as a lure to get you out of your car so you can be abducted or followed.' The post purported to show photos of a car seat left in a parking lot in Nashville. It was shared nearly 300,000 times. Other unsubstantiated internet rumors warning about human trafficking plots have taken off in the past. One rumor spread on Facebook in 2019 cautioned that sex traffickers were afixing zip ties to car door handles as a means of distracting victims. Another claim from 2019, amplified by the then-mayor of Baltimore, alleged that sex traffickers were driving white vans. More recently, supporters of the QAnon movement advanced evidence-free conspiracy theories that separately accused Walmart and Wayfair, an online furniture retailer, of using certain items as cover for selling and shipping children to pedophiles. | Our ruling Facebook posts claimed that a photo shows a plot by sex traffickers to use abandoned child car seats to lure in victims. Police investigated the photo of an abandoned car seat that inspired this internet rumor. They concluded that it was not associated with sex trafficking or other criminal activity. Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, called the rumor 'unfounded' and a 'myth.' We rate these claims False. | []
|
A photo shows sex traffickers using an abandoned child car seat to lure in victims. | Contradiction | Social media users continue to share posts claiming that sex traffickers are using abandoned car seats to lure in victims, even as local police and the organization behind the National Human Trafficking Hotline have said such claims are unfounded. Human trafficking is a legitimate threat that affects millions of people. But the photo of an empty child car seat sitting in a parking lot was not the tell-all that social media users were making it out to be. The photo appears to have originated with an Oct. 9 Facebook post. The poster wrote that the car seat was in the parking lot of a Walmart in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. 'Sex traffickers use this method to lure you in and snatch you up,' the poster claimed. An Oct. 9 Facebook post claimed sex traffickers were using an abandoned car seat to lure victims. The Facebook post was shared more than 700 times, and screenshots of it were flagged as part of the platform's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But the viral internet rumor exploded further online after a TikTok user warned about what she described as the latest 'trap' from sex traffickers. The video from Paige Marie Parker, who describes herself as a 'spiritual gardener' and now has more than 178,000 followers, was reported by Rolling Stone after it got 12.2 million views in just over a day. It is no longer available on TikTok, but PolitiFact found a copy of it online. 'So have you ever seen this type of car seat just out of nowhere?' Parker says in the video, as she points to a Facebook post from the Wilkesboro Police Department addressing the car seat photo and rumors. 'That's not an ordinary car seat. That's actually a trap.' 'That's actually a sex trafficking car seat,' Parker continues. 'No parent will ever leave a random car seat out there just to be out there. They want you to go up to the car seat and look around while they'll really snatch you really quick. It's a ploy. Please be safe out here ladies.' It's important for people to stay aware of their surroundings. Should you want to report or seek services related to a case of human trafficking, you can contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or email [email protected]. But the Wilkesboro Police Department statement that Parker highlighted in her video did not confirm that traffickers are using car seats to draw in victims; instead, it debunked the rumor. The department wrote that it had investigated the car seat photo from the original Facebook post, and that the backstory had nothing to do with sex trafficking. 'At no time was this incident deemed to be involved in any criminal activity,' the department concluded. The car seat was in the parking lot, the police said, because two Walmart customers purchased a new child car seat, then they removed their old one and left it there. Interim department chief Tommy Rhodes told the Associated Press that the police reviewed security footage of the events to determine what happened. 'If we for one second thought that was a sex trafficking ploy, we would be all over that,' Rhodes said. Polaris, the organization that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, said in its own statement that 'when narratives like the car seat myth go viral, it can do serious harm to actual trafficking survivors,' including by overwhelming anti-trafficking organization's limited resources to respond to tips. 'Recent rumors about sex traffickers using abandoned child car seats to lure victims are unfounded,' the Polaris statement said. A similar Facebook post claimed in September that 'empty baby car seats are being used as a lure to get you out of your car so you can be abducted or followed.' The post purported to show photos of a car seat left in a parking lot in Nashville. It was shared nearly 300,000 times. Other unsubstantiated internet rumors warning about human trafficking plots have taken off in the past. One rumor spread on Facebook in 2019 cautioned that sex traffickers were afixing zip ties to car door handles as a means of distracting victims. Another claim from 2019, amplified by the then-mayor of Baltimore, alleged that sex traffickers were driving white vans. More recently, supporters of the QAnon movement advanced evidence-free conspiracy theories that separately accused Walmart and Wayfair, an online furniture retailer, of using certain items as cover for selling and shipping children to pedophiles. | Our ruling Facebook posts claimed that a photo shows a plot by sex traffickers to use abandoned child car seats to lure in victims. Police investigated the photo of an abandoned car seat that inspired this internet rumor. They concluded that it was not associated with sex trafficking or other criminal activity. Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, called the rumor 'unfounded' and a 'myth.' We rate these claims False. | []
|
U.S. veteran group rescued Afghan allies 'behind Biden's back. | Contradiction | CORRECTED, Sept. 7, 10:45 a.m.: This fact-check was corrected to delete a reference to tweets by a rescuer in Afghanistan. According to the reporter on the ABC News story, the author of those tweets did not participate in Pineapple Express. The rating is not changed. A headline on the conservative website Gateway Pundit claimed that American veterans rescued people in Afghanistan without the knowledge of President Joe Biden, stating: 'Operation 'Pineapple Express' - Rogue Team of Retired US Vets Rescue Afghan Allies During Secret Missions Conducted BEHIND BIDEN'S BACK.' The headline was widely shared in a Facebook post that was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post refers to Pineapple Express, an operation run by a volunteer group of U.S. veterans of the Afghan war who helped arrange evacuations from Kabul after the Taliban takeover. The mission is named Pineapple Express because Afghans would display images of a pineapple as a rescue signal, the Military Times reported. The post's references to a 'rogue team' working 'behind Biden's back,' suggest that the group did something in defiance of the U.S. military or without the knowledge of the federal government. But members of the mission said they worked with the U.S. military. Members of the veterans group told ABC News that they launched their mission on Aug. 25 and worked unofficially with the U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy to protect hundreds of Afghan special operators, assets and enablers and their families by bringing them inside the U.S. military-controlled side of Hamid Karzai International Airport. The report said ABC News observed the operation. The ABC report quoted one member of the mission as expressing deep frustration 'that our own government didn't do this. We did what we should do, as Americans.' But it also noted that Biden sent 6,000 military personnel to the airport after Kabul fell to the Taliban to help evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. The Gateway Pundit article also cited the quote from the frustrated veteran, but didn't provide evidence to back the claim in the headline that the mission was done 'behind Biden's back.' Other reports also said the mission worked with the U.S. military. One member of the mission told Fox News: 'The U.S. government is sending us people as well that need help getting out, so we are in coordination, and we are working with the U.S. government.' We found no evidence to support the headline's claim that the Pineapple Express mission was carried out 'behind Biden's back.' We rate the statement False. | We rate the statement False. | []
|
Quotes Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as saying, 'Now is not the time to live by the Constitution, it's time to put that damn thing in a shredder. | Contradiction | Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has taken aggressive steps to slow the spread of COVID-19. While polls show wide support for her response, she has faced a fierce backlash from some Michiganders who say the restrictions in the statewide stay-at-home order violate their constitutional rights. Whitmer, who extended the order on April 24 and slightly loosened some of the regulations, has said that the restrictions are necessary to protect public safety and that they're helping to slow the spread of the virus. But we recently came across a post on Facebook that's putting words in her mouth. The post, which was shared on April 13, reads: 'Michigan Governor says 'Now is not the time to live by the Constitution, it's time to put that Damn thing in a shredder'!!!' Some commenters believed she said it; others asked for proof. We're here to tell you: She didn't. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There's no evidence that Whitmer made this comment. A search for the quote in news databases, as well as in transcripts of Whitmer's recent appearances, interviews and statements, comes up short. Whitmer's office also told us the statement isn't legitimate. 'This is completely false information,' a spokesperson wrote in an email. 'Posts like these are being spread across social media platforms to create rumors and fear.' This quote is bogus and only exists in unsourced social media posts. We rate it Pants on Fire! | This quote is bogus and only exists in unsourced social media posts. We rate it Pants on Fire! | []
|
Quotes Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as saying, 'Now is not the time to live by the Constitution, it's time to put that damn thing in a shredder. | Contradiction | Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has taken aggressive steps to slow the spread of COVID-19. While polls show wide support for her response, she has faced a fierce backlash from some Michiganders who say the restrictions in the statewide stay-at-home order violate their constitutional rights. Whitmer, who extended the order on April 24 and slightly loosened some of the regulations, has said that the restrictions are necessary to protect public safety and that they're helping to slow the spread of the virus. But we recently came across a post on Facebook that's putting words in her mouth. The post, which was shared on April 13, reads: 'Michigan Governor says 'Now is not the time to live by the Constitution, it's time to put that Damn thing in a shredder'!!!' Some commenters believed she said it; others asked for proof. We're here to tell you: She didn't. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There's no evidence that Whitmer made this comment. A search for the quote in news databases, as well as in transcripts of Whitmer's recent appearances, interviews and statements, comes up short. Whitmer's office also told us the statement isn't legitimate. 'This is completely false information,' a spokesperson wrote in an email. 'Posts like these are being spread across social media platforms to create rumors and fear.' This quote is bogus and only exists in unsourced social media posts. We rate it Pants on Fire! | This quote is bogus and only exists in unsourced social media posts. We rate it Pants on Fire! | []
|
Mosquitoes can transfer COVID-19 'from person to person' | Contradiction | Misleading claims on social media have spread the myth that with summer around the corner, mosquitoes are another way that COVID-19 will spread. 'u think its bad now just wait till them mosquito's start transferring Corona blood from person to person,' stated an April 22 Facebook post. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) While mosquitoes can transmit some illnesses such as malaria, we found no evidence that COVID-19 is spread through mosquitoes. It is a respiratory virus that spreads between people, public health agencies say. 'To date there has been no information nor evidence to suggest that the new coronavirus could be transmitted by mosquitoes,' says the World Health Organization on a myth-busting page. The main driver of COVID-19 transmission, based on available data, is people who have symptoms, WHO spokeswoman Carla Drysdale told PolitiFact. COVID-19 spreads primarily through droplets generated when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose, the WHO found. 'The main way that COVID-19 spreads is from person to person,' said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For a virus to pass to a person through a mosquito or tick bite, the virus must be able to replicate inside the mosquito or tick, said Joseph M Conlon, an adviser for the American Mosquito Control Association. 'None of the coronaviruses have been shown to do that,' he said. However, mosquitoes can factor into the severity of the disease if a patient has underlying medical issues due to mosquito-borne diseases, Conlon said. 'Mosquito-borne viruses such as West Nile virus and dengue fever have not disappeared as COVID-19 has usurped the media landscape,' he said. 'As potential contributors to severe outcomes, their prevention/control becomes even more critical.' Though the WHO and CDC have said mosquitoes don't transmit COVID-19, ProPublica reported that an internal briefing memo showed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched its own study into the matter. The USDA did not respond to ProPublica's questions. We tried to confirm the memo ourselves but did not hear back from the agency. | Our ruling A Facebook post said mosquitoes can transfer COVID-19 'from person to person' Major health organizations said that mosquitoes do not transfer the virus. Instead, it is transferred via droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose. Without evidence to support the claim, we rate this statement False. | [
"106800-proof-30-ed737cf3fbd37ee985b68edf452b8091.jpg"
]
|
Mosquitoes can transfer COVID-19 'from person to person' | Contradiction | Misleading claims on social media have spread the myth that with summer around the corner, mosquitoes are another way that COVID-19 will spread. 'u think its bad now just wait till them mosquito's start transferring Corona blood from person to person,' stated an April 22 Facebook post. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) While mosquitoes can transmit some illnesses such as malaria, we found no evidence that COVID-19 is spread through mosquitoes. It is a respiratory virus that spreads between people, public health agencies say. 'To date there has been no information nor evidence to suggest that the new coronavirus could be transmitted by mosquitoes,' says the World Health Organization on a myth-busting page. The main driver of COVID-19 transmission, based on available data, is people who have symptoms, WHO spokeswoman Carla Drysdale told PolitiFact. COVID-19 spreads primarily through droplets generated when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose, the WHO found. 'The main way that COVID-19 spreads is from person to person,' said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For a virus to pass to a person through a mosquito or tick bite, the virus must be able to replicate inside the mosquito or tick, said Joseph M Conlon, an adviser for the American Mosquito Control Association. 'None of the coronaviruses have been shown to do that,' he said. However, mosquitoes can factor into the severity of the disease if a patient has underlying medical issues due to mosquito-borne diseases, Conlon said. 'Mosquito-borne viruses such as West Nile virus and dengue fever have not disappeared as COVID-19 has usurped the media landscape,' he said. 'As potential contributors to severe outcomes, their prevention/control becomes even more critical.' Though the WHO and CDC have said mosquitoes don't transmit COVID-19, ProPublica reported that an internal briefing memo showed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched its own study into the matter. The USDA did not respond to ProPublica's questions. We tried to confirm the memo ourselves but did not hear back from the agency. | Our ruling A Facebook post said mosquitoes can transfer COVID-19 'from person to person' Major health organizations said that mosquitoes do not transfer the virus. Instead, it is transferred via droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose. Without evidence to support the claim, we rate this statement False. | [
"106800-proof-30-ed737cf3fbd37ee985b68edf452b8091.jpg"
]
|
'So far, out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha. Rioting has become its own industry. | Contradiction | When protesters gathered in Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer on Aug. 23, 2020, an array of online claims surfaced about who exactly was protesting. These questions only increased after news that federal law enforcement had stopped at least one vehicle on Aug. 26 with out-of-state plates and arrested the occupants, suspecting them of planning criminal activity related to the protests. Was that proof of a larger trend? Weeks after the protest, one Facebook post's claim on this point continues to be widely shared. 'So far, out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha,' says a post from Sept. 1, 2020. 'Rioting has become its own industry. Who's paying these monsters?' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook). Let's review what we know about the protest arrests. Nearly all arrests were from Kenosha and surrounding areas The numbers in the post come from an Aug. 30 news release issued by Kenosha police. The department reported 175 people were arrested from Aug. 24 (when the first protests started) to 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 30. Of those, 102 listed addresses outside Kenosha. The release also noted 69 of those people were arrested for curfew violations, while 34 were arrested for violating curfew as well as other charges such as carrying concealed weapons, burglary and drug possession. The implication from the Facebook post is that the people arrested from outside Kenosha were an organized 'industry,' or for some other reason weren't people who naturally assembled. Police booking data tells a different story. Online booking data doesn't line up precisely with the police report. But it shows 165 people were arrested from Aug. 24 to 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 30, which gives us insight into how those protest arrests broke down. Among the 165: 59 were from Kenosha (roughly in line with the ratio in the post and news release) 60 were from elsewhere in Wisconsin, mostly Milwaukee (23) and Racine (14) 28 were from Illinois, the border of which is about 6 miles from the heart of the protests 11 were from Washington and Oregon 7 were from elsewhere (Kentucky, Minnesota, Indiana and California, as well as three listed by police as homeless) The Washington and Oregon residents are largely related to a Seattle-based group called Riot Kitchen, which provides meals for protesters and homeless people. A widely shared video showed police forcibly removing people from a minivan with Oregon plates at a Kenosha gas station Aug. 26. Police said the group had several vehicles and had been filling gas cans there. Authorities suspected 'the occupants of these vehicles were preparing for criminal activity related to the civil unrest,' police said in a statement. But a Riot Kitchen board member told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the gas was to run a generator they use for making food. The group had detoured to feed people in Kenosha during a planned trip to Washington, D.C., they told a New York Times reporter. | Our ruling A Facebook post says 'out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha. Rioting has become its own industry.' The numbers are correct, but the implication connected to them is not. The majority of those arrested were from outside the city of Kenosha, but about 90% were from either Wisconsin or nearby Illinois. In other words, people one would expect to organically gather for a local protest spurred by a local event. And most of those from farthest away can be traced to a single group that drove from the West Coast. Our definition of Mostly False is a claim that contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. That fits here. | []
|
'So far, out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha. Rioting has become its own industry. | Contradiction | When protesters gathered in Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer on Aug. 23, 2020, an array of online claims surfaced about who exactly was protesting. These questions only increased after news that federal law enforcement had stopped at least one vehicle on Aug. 26 with out-of-state plates and arrested the occupants, suspecting them of planning criminal activity related to the protests. Was that proof of a larger trend? Weeks after the protest, one Facebook post's claim on this point continues to be widely shared. 'So far, out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha,' says a post from Sept. 1, 2020. 'Rioting has become its own industry. Who's paying these monsters?' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook). Let's review what we know about the protest arrests. Nearly all arrests were from Kenosha and surrounding areas The numbers in the post come from an Aug. 30 news release issued by Kenosha police. The department reported 175 people were arrested from Aug. 24 (when the first protests started) to 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 30. Of those, 102 listed addresses outside Kenosha. The release also noted 69 of those people were arrested for curfew violations, while 34 were arrested for violating curfew as well as other charges such as carrying concealed weapons, burglary and drug possession. The implication from the Facebook post is that the people arrested from outside Kenosha were an organized 'industry,' or for some other reason weren't people who naturally assembled. Police booking data tells a different story. Online booking data doesn't line up precisely with the police report. But it shows 165 people were arrested from Aug. 24 to 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 30, which gives us insight into how those protest arrests broke down. Among the 165: 59 were from Kenosha (roughly in line with the ratio in the post and news release) 60 were from elsewhere in Wisconsin, mostly Milwaukee (23) and Racine (14) 28 were from Illinois, the border of which is about 6 miles from the heart of the protests 11 were from Washington and Oregon 7 were from elsewhere (Kentucky, Minnesota, Indiana and California, as well as three listed by police as homeless) The Washington and Oregon residents are largely related to a Seattle-based group called Riot Kitchen, which provides meals for protesters and homeless people. A widely shared video showed police forcibly removing people from a minivan with Oregon plates at a Kenosha gas station Aug. 26. Police said the group had several vehicles and had been filling gas cans there. Authorities suspected 'the occupants of these vehicles were preparing for criminal activity related to the civil unrest,' police said in a statement. But a Riot Kitchen board member told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the gas was to run a generator they use for making food. The group had detoured to feed people in Kenosha during a planned trip to Washington, D.C., they told a New York Times reporter. | Our ruling A Facebook post says 'out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha. Rioting has become its own industry.' The numbers are correct, but the implication connected to them is not. The majority of those arrested were from outside the city of Kenosha, but about 90% were from either Wisconsin or nearby Illinois. In other words, people one would expect to organically gather for a local protest spurred by a local event. And most of those from farthest away can be traced to a single group that drove from the West Coast. Our definition of Mostly False is a claim that contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. That fits here. | []
|
'So far, out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha. Rioting has become its own industry. | Contradiction | When protesters gathered in Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer on Aug. 23, 2020, an array of online claims surfaced about who exactly was protesting. These questions only increased after news that federal law enforcement had stopped at least one vehicle on Aug. 26 with out-of-state plates and arrested the occupants, suspecting them of planning criminal activity related to the protests. Was that proof of a larger trend? Weeks after the protest, one Facebook post's claim on this point continues to be widely shared. 'So far, out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha,' says a post from Sept. 1, 2020. 'Rioting has become its own industry. Who's paying these monsters?' This post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook). Let's review what we know about the protest arrests. Nearly all arrests were from Kenosha and surrounding areas The numbers in the post come from an Aug. 30 news release issued by Kenosha police. The department reported 175 people were arrested from Aug. 24 (when the first protests started) to 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 30. Of those, 102 listed addresses outside Kenosha. The release also noted 69 of those people were arrested for curfew violations, while 34 were arrested for violating curfew as well as other charges such as carrying concealed weapons, burglary and drug possession. The implication from the Facebook post is that the people arrested from outside Kenosha were an organized 'industry,' or for some other reason weren't people who naturally assembled. Police booking data tells a different story. Online booking data doesn't line up precisely with the police report. But it shows 165 people were arrested from Aug. 24 to 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 30, which gives us insight into how those protest arrests broke down. Among the 165: 59 were from Kenosha (roughly in line with the ratio in the post and news release) 60 were from elsewhere in Wisconsin, mostly Milwaukee (23) and Racine (14) 28 were from Illinois, the border of which is about 6 miles from the heart of the protests 11 were from Washington and Oregon 7 were from elsewhere (Kentucky, Minnesota, Indiana and California, as well as three listed by police as homeless) The Washington and Oregon residents are largely related to a Seattle-based group called Riot Kitchen, which provides meals for protesters and homeless people. A widely shared video showed police forcibly removing people from a minivan with Oregon plates at a Kenosha gas station Aug. 26. Police said the group had several vehicles and had been filling gas cans there. Authorities suspected 'the occupants of these vehicles were preparing for criminal activity related to the civil unrest,' police said in a statement. But a Riot Kitchen board member told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the gas was to run a generator they use for making food. The group had detoured to feed people in Kenosha during a planned trip to Washington, D.C., they told a New York Times reporter. | Our ruling A Facebook post says 'out of 175 arrested in Kenosha, 102 were not from Kenosha. Rioting has become its own industry.' The numbers are correct, but the implication connected to them is not. The majority of those arrested were from outside the city of Kenosha, but about 90% were from either Wisconsin or nearby Illinois. In other words, people one would expect to organically gather for a local protest spurred by a local event. And most of those from farthest away can be traced to a single group that drove from the West Coast. Our definition of Mostly False is a claim that contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. That fits here. | []
|
The Christmas Day explosion in Nashville, Tenn., was the result of a 'missile strike. | Contradiction | Conspiracy theorists say the suicide bombing that rocked downtown Nashville, Tenn., on Christmas Day was actually the result of a missile strike. Their evidence: a grainy black-and-white video. The video, which was posted by a Facebook page called Red Pill Radio on Dec. 28, shows the outline of buildings and a highway in Nashville. Then, a plume of smoke rises behind three light poles. 'You can see as there's a line flying in, there's a little bit of a glow and then there's the explosion,' a narrator says in the video. 'Very, very interesting.' 'Nashville explosion a missile strike??' reads the post caption from Red Pill Radio, a Facebook account that bears the slogan of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory on its 'About' page. (Screenshot from Facebook) The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Similar claims have been shared in hundreds of public posts, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. In its video, Red Pill Radio cites a Dec. 26 article from WorthyPolitics.com whose headline claims the video 'proves Nashville explosion was actually a missile strike.' We have seen similar claims from others who say the missile was aimed at the AT&T Building. There is no evidence to substantiate that theory. We rated Pants on Fire a similar claim that AT&T was targeted in the bombing as part of an election cover-up. While federal investigators are still looking into the bombing, law enforcement officials have said a man named Anthony Warner was responsible and died in the blast. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. The video in the Facebook post is security footage obtained by WKRN-TV, a station based in Nashville. It shows smoke from the explosion over the skyline. The clip does not show a missile hitting the city. Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. The explosion injured three people and damaged several businesses, including the AT&T Building. This is video of Friday morning's explosion recorded by an MNPD camera at 2nd Ave N & Commerce St. pic.twitter.com/3vaXhoUOAR- Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) December 28, 2020 One clip captured an audio message warning people to evacuate the area seconds before the explosion. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the RV at the center of the blast in a Dec. 25 tweet. On Dec. 27, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said the explosion appeared to be a suicide bombing carried out by a Warner. DNA from human remains found at the scene matched Warner, and investigators found financial records for components that he may have used to construct the bomb. FBI agents are investigating whether Warner may have been paranoid about 5G technology. Conspiracy theories about the cellular data networks have blossomed on social media over the past year, falsely claiming that 5G spreads COVID-19 and could be used as a spying tool by the government. The investigation of the Nashville bombing is ongoing, but the Facebook post is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire! | There is no evidence to substantiate that theory. We rated Pants on Fire a similar claim that AT&T was targeted in the bombing as part of an election cover-up. Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on November 7, 2021 in a Facebook post A banner for COVID-19 vaccines says, 'Don't forget to donate your childrens organs.' By Ciara O'Rourke • November 10, 2021 While federal investigators are still looking into the bombing, law enforcement officials have said a man named Anthony Warner was responsible and died in the blast. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. The video in the Facebook post is security footage obtained by WKRN-TV, a station based in Nashville. It shows smoke from the explosion over the skyline. The clip does not show a missile hitting the city. Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. The explosion injured three people and damaged several businesses, including the AT&T Building. This is video of Friday morning's explosion recorded by an MNPD camera at 2nd Ave N & Commerce St. pic.twitter.com/3vaXhoUOAR- Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) December 28, 2020 One clip captured an audio message warning people to evacuate the area seconds before the explosion. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the RV at the center of the blast in a Dec. 25 tweet. On Dec. 27, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said the explosion appeared to be a suicide bombing carried out by a Warner. DNA from human remains found at the scene matched Warner, and investigators found financial records for components that he may have used to construct the bomb. FBI agents are investigating whether Warner may have been paranoid about 5G technology. Conspiracy theories about the cellular data networks have blossomed on social media over the past year, falsely claiming that 5G spreads COVID-19 and could be used as a spying tool by the government. The investigation of the Nashville bombing is ongoing, but the Facebook post is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire! | [
"106814-proof-19-defc67f806fa7822e7085197be5a5fa1.jpg"
]
|
The Christmas Day explosion in Nashville, Tenn., was the result of a 'missile strike. | Contradiction | Conspiracy theorists say the suicide bombing that rocked downtown Nashville, Tenn., on Christmas Day was actually the result of a missile strike. Their evidence: a grainy black-and-white video. The video, which was posted by a Facebook page called Red Pill Radio on Dec. 28, shows the outline of buildings and a highway in Nashville. Then, a plume of smoke rises behind three light poles. 'You can see as there's a line flying in, there's a little bit of a glow and then there's the explosion,' a narrator says in the video. 'Very, very interesting.' 'Nashville explosion a missile strike??' reads the post caption from Red Pill Radio, a Facebook account that bears the slogan of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory on its 'About' page. (Screenshot from Facebook) The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Similar claims have been shared in hundreds of public posts, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. In its video, Red Pill Radio cites a Dec. 26 article from WorthyPolitics.com whose headline claims the video 'proves Nashville explosion was actually a missile strike.' We have seen similar claims from others who say the missile was aimed at the AT&T Building. There is no evidence to substantiate that theory. We rated Pants on Fire a similar claim that AT&T was targeted in the bombing as part of an election cover-up. While federal investigators are still looking into the bombing, law enforcement officials have said a man named Anthony Warner was responsible and died in the blast. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. The video in the Facebook post is security footage obtained by WKRN-TV, a station based in Nashville. It shows smoke from the explosion over the skyline. The clip does not show a missile hitting the city. Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. The explosion injured three people and damaged several businesses, including the AT&T Building. This is video of Friday morning's explosion recorded by an MNPD camera at 2nd Ave N & Commerce St. pic.twitter.com/3vaXhoUOAR- Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) December 28, 2020 One clip captured an audio message warning people to evacuate the area seconds before the explosion. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the RV at the center of the blast in a Dec. 25 tweet. On Dec. 27, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said the explosion appeared to be a suicide bombing carried out by a Warner. DNA from human remains found at the scene matched Warner, and investigators found financial records for components that he may have used to construct the bomb. FBI agents are investigating whether Warner may have been paranoid about 5G technology. Conspiracy theories about the cellular data networks have blossomed on social media over the past year, falsely claiming that 5G spreads COVID-19 and could be used as a spying tool by the government. The investigation of the Nashville bombing is ongoing, but the Facebook post is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire! | There is no evidence to substantiate that theory. We rated Pants on Fire a similar claim that AT&T was targeted in the bombing as part of an election cover-up. Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on November 7, 2021 in a Facebook post A banner for COVID-19 vaccines says, 'Don't forget to donate your childrens organs.' By Ciara O'Rourke • November 10, 2021 While federal investigators are still looking into the bombing, law enforcement officials have said a man named Anthony Warner was responsible and died in the blast. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. The video in the Facebook post is security footage obtained by WKRN-TV, a station based in Nashville. It shows smoke from the explosion over the skyline. The clip does not show a missile hitting the city. Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. The explosion injured three people and damaged several businesses, including the AT&T Building. This is video of Friday morning's explosion recorded by an MNPD camera at 2nd Ave N & Commerce St. pic.twitter.com/3vaXhoUOAR- Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) December 28, 2020 One clip captured an audio message warning people to evacuate the area seconds before the explosion. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the RV at the center of the blast in a Dec. 25 tweet. On Dec. 27, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said the explosion appeared to be a suicide bombing carried out by a Warner. DNA from human remains found at the scene matched Warner, and investigators found financial records for components that he may have used to construct the bomb. FBI agents are investigating whether Warner may have been paranoid about 5G technology. Conspiracy theories about the cellular data networks have blossomed on social media over the past year, falsely claiming that 5G spreads COVID-19 and could be used as a spying tool by the government. The investigation of the Nashville bombing is ongoing, but the Facebook post is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire! | [
"106814-proof-19-defc67f806fa7822e7085197be5a5fa1.jpg"
]
|
COVID-19 cases are 'up only because of our big number testing. | Contradiction | President Donald Trump's explanation for rising counts of U.S. coronavirus cases is that we're testing more people for the virus. On June 23, Trump tweeted, 'Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!!' Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!! https://t.co/bKFmgOLEGZ- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020 We'll look at his statement on mortality in a separate fact-check. In this article we'll focus on his mistaken connection between increased testing and increased cases. While the number of coronavirus tests being conducted is rising over time, the positivity rate - which is the percentage of tests that come up positive for the virus - has also been rising since early June. And that undermines Trump's argument. The following chart shows that the number of tests across the country has risen steadily since late March. The orange line shows how the positivity rate has changed over time. Initially, the rise in tests did show the pattern Trump touted: As more tests were conducted, the percentage of positive results declined. After peaking above 20% positive in early April, the positivity rate fell to about 4% in early June. A likely reason for this pattern is that early in the pandemic, tests were scarce and were reserved for people who showed visible symptoms. As testing kits became more widely accessible for people without obvious symptoms, a wider cross-section of the population was tested, with a resulting decline in tests showing the patient was infected. The problem for Trump's assertion is that the decline in the positive rate reversed itself in early June. The positivity rate bottomed out around June 10 at about 4.3%. By June 22, it had risen to about 5.3%. That may not sound like a big increase, but if more infections are being tallied simply because more tests are being given, as Trump suggested, the positivity rate should be going down, or at least staying about the same, not rising. 'The up-turn in positive rate is sufficient to debunk' what Trump said about testing, 'particularly given that the total number tests conducted is at its highest yet, and still we see an increase in the seven-day rolling positive rate,' said Brooke Nichols, an infectious disease modeler at the Boston University School of Public Health. The rise in the positivity rate appears to be driven by a handful of states. Early coronavirus hot spots, notably New York, have seen a decline in new infections despite widespread testing. But other states are seeing both an increase in infections and an increase in the percentage of positive tests. In Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas, the positivity rate has increased consistently since late May. The White House told PolitiFact that anecdotally, the increased testing has uncovered a growing number of people who are asymptomatic or who have mild or moderate cases than earlier in the pandemic, when tests were hard to get. However, an increase in the number of infections also means the potential for accelerated spread. | Our ruling Trump said that the coronavirus case count is 'up only because of our big number testing.' Testing has increased nationally, but epidemiologists say that if this were the only reason that new cases were rising, the percentage of positive tests should be dropping or at least remaining about the same. That pattern did occur from early April to early June, a period when the availability of testing expanded significantly. However, that's no longer the case. Since early June, the amount of testing being conducted has continued to reach new highs, yet the positivity rate has risen by a full percentage point. We rate the statement False. | [
"106816-proof-12-0477902d1ba2810061b616484fc0d34f.jpg"
]
|
COVID-19 cases are 'up only because of our big number testing. | Contradiction | President Donald Trump's explanation for rising counts of U.S. coronavirus cases is that we're testing more people for the virus. On June 23, Trump tweeted, 'Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!!' Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!! https://t.co/bKFmgOLEGZ- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020 We'll look at his statement on mortality in a separate fact-check. In this article we'll focus on his mistaken connection between increased testing and increased cases. While the number of coronavirus tests being conducted is rising over time, the positivity rate - which is the percentage of tests that come up positive for the virus - has also been rising since early June. And that undermines Trump's argument. The following chart shows that the number of tests across the country has risen steadily since late March. The orange line shows how the positivity rate has changed over time. Initially, the rise in tests did show the pattern Trump touted: As more tests were conducted, the percentage of positive results declined. After peaking above 20% positive in early April, the positivity rate fell to about 4% in early June. A likely reason for this pattern is that early in the pandemic, tests were scarce and were reserved for people who showed visible symptoms. As testing kits became more widely accessible for people without obvious symptoms, a wider cross-section of the population was tested, with a resulting decline in tests showing the patient was infected. The problem for Trump's assertion is that the decline in the positive rate reversed itself in early June. The positivity rate bottomed out around June 10 at about 4.3%. By June 22, it had risen to about 5.3%. That may not sound like a big increase, but if more infections are being tallied simply because more tests are being given, as Trump suggested, the positivity rate should be going down, or at least staying about the same, not rising. 'The up-turn in positive rate is sufficient to debunk' what Trump said about testing, 'particularly given that the total number tests conducted is at its highest yet, and still we see an increase in the seven-day rolling positive rate,' said Brooke Nichols, an infectious disease modeler at the Boston University School of Public Health. The rise in the positivity rate appears to be driven by a handful of states. Early coronavirus hot spots, notably New York, have seen a decline in new infections despite widespread testing. But other states are seeing both an increase in infections and an increase in the percentage of positive tests. In Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas, the positivity rate has increased consistently since late May. The White House told PolitiFact that anecdotally, the increased testing has uncovered a growing number of people who are asymptomatic or who have mild or moderate cases than earlier in the pandemic, when tests were hard to get. However, an increase in the number of infections also means the potential for accelerated spread. | Our ruling Trump said that the coronavirus case count is 'up only because of our big number testing.' Testing has increased nationally, but epidemiologists say that if this were the only reason that new cases were rising, the percentage of positive tests should be dropping or at least remaining about the same. That pattern did occur from early April to early June, a period when the availability of testing expanded significantly. However, that's no longer the case. Since early June, the amount of testing being conducted has continued to reach new highs, yet the positivity rate has risen by a full percentage point. We rate the statement False. | [
"106816-proof-12-0477902d1ba2810061b616484fc0d34f.jpg"
]
|
COVID-19 cases are 'up only because of our big number testing. | Contradiction | President Donald Trump's explanation for rising counts of U.S. coronavirus cases is that we're testing more people for the virus. On June 23, Trump tweeted, 'Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!!' Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!! https://t.co/bKFmgOLEGZ- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020 We'll look at his statement on mortality in a separate fact-check. In this article we'll focus on his mistaken connection between increased testing and increased cases. While the number of coronavirus tests being conducted is rising over time, the positivity rate - which is the percentage of tests that come up positive for the virus - has also been rising since early June. And that undermines Trump's argument. The following chart shows that the number of tests across the country has risen steadily since late March. The orange line shows how the positivity rate has changed over time. Initially, the rise in tests did show the pattern Trump touted: As more tests were conducted, the percentage of positive results declined. After peaking above 20% positive in early April, the positivity rate fell to about 4% in early June. A likely reason for this pattern is that early in the pandemic, tests were scarce and were reserved for people who showed visible symptoms. As testing kits became more widely accessible for people without obvious symptoms, a wider cross-section of the population was tested, with a resulting decline in tests showing the patient was infected. The problem for Trump's assertion is that the decline in the positive rate reversed itself in early June. The positivity rate bottomed out around June 10 at about 4.3%. By June 22, it had risen to about 5.3%. That may not sound like a big increase, but if more infections are being tallied simply because more tests are being given, as Trump suggested, the positivity rate should be going down, or at least staying about the same, not rising. 'The up-turn in positive rate is sufficient to debunk' what Trump said about testing, 'particularly given that the total number tests conducted is at its highest yet, and still we see an increase in the seven-day rolling positive rate,' said Brooke Nichols, an infectious disease modeler at the Boston University School of Public Health. The rise in the positivity rate appears to be driven by a handful of states. Early coronavirus hot spots, notably New York, have seen a decline in new infections despite widespread testing. But other states are seeing both an increase in infections and an increase in the percentage of positive tests. In Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas, the positivity rate has increased consistently since late May. The White House told PolitiFact that anecdotally, the increased testing has uncovered a growing number of people who are asymptomatic or who have mild or moderate cases than earlier in the pandemic, when tests were hard to get. However, an increase in the number of infections also means the potential for accelerated spread. | Our ruling Trump said that the coronavirus case count is 'up only because of our big number testing.' Testing has increased nationally, but epidemiologists say that if this were the only reason that new cases were rising, the percentage of positive tests should be dropping or at least remaining about the same. That pattern did occur from early April to early June, a period when the availability of testing expanded significantly. However, that's no longer the case. Since early June, the amount of testing being conducted has continued to reach new highs, yet the positivity rate has risen by a full percentage point. We rate the statement False. | [
"106816-proof-12-0477902d1ba2810061b616484fc0d34f.jpg"
]
|
The shooting in Boulder, Colo., was a 'false flag like most of the others. | Contradiction | Hours after 10 people were gunned down at a supermarket in Boulder, Colo., some people logged on to social media to say the shooting was staged. 'So called shooting in Boulder, CO is fake...false flag like most of the others. Don't doubt me on this,' one Facebook user wrote in a text post. 'OMFG THIS IS FAKE!!!!!!!!! STAGED!!!!!!' wrote an Instagram user who shared a video taken by a bystander at the scene. The posts were flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook, which owns Instagram.) (Screenshot from Facebook) On March 22, a gunman walked into a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, a college town northwest of Denver, and killed 10 people - including one police officer. Police have arrested 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada, Colo., who was injured during the shooting, in connection with the attack. Authorities have not established a motive. There is no evidence the attack was staged. False claims that mass shootings are staged have circulated on social media for years. The video in the Instagram post was captured by bystander Dean Schiller. It shows people lying motionless outside and inside King Soopers while a gun is fired in the background. Police radio traffic from the time of the shooting described a similar scene. 'At approximately 2:40 p.m. on Monday, March 22, officers were dispatched to the King Soopers at 3600 Table Mesa Drive for a report of an active shooter,' says a timeline from the Boulder Police Department. 'Officers arrived on scene within minutes and immediately entered the store and engaged with the suspect. There was an exchange of gunfire during which the suspect was shot.' Authorities have shared the names of the shooting victims. Both the Boulder Police Department and the FBI are investigating the attack. False flag conspiracy theories are a popular form of misinformation following mass shootings. There is no evidence to support the notion that shootings are regularly staged, planned or otherwise faked. The posts are inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate this one Pants on Fire! | The posts are inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate this one Pants on Fire! | [
"106846-proof-01-8eb7560e91afcc0d92ceb13f46723512.jpg"
]
|
Says Joe Biden and Kamala Harris distrusted COVID-19 vaccines. | Contradiction | President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been pushing Americans to get inoculated against COVID-19. But a video on social media suggests that they actually had reservations about the safety of the vaccines. 'Keep doubting, They actually said this, it's not editing,' says the heading on the video, which contains clips of statements made by Biden and Harris appearing to cast doubt on the vaccine while they were campaigning last year. In fact, the clips are selectively edited to take the statements out of context. The parts that are left out make clear that Biden and Harris were raising questions not about the vaccines themselves, but about then-President Donald Trump's rollout of the vaccines and the risk that the effort would become rushed or politicized. The TikTok video was posted on TikTok on May 11 and we found it was still being widely shared on Facebook in mid-July, more than a month after it was reposted there. A June 15 Facebook post showing the video was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Trump was publicly touting the promise of a rapidly developed COVID-19 vaccine as early as March 2020, when fears of a global pandemic were just beginning to flare, and said he was urging researchers working on the vaccine to 'speed it up.' Scientists and drug makers, meanwhile, were urging more caution on the timeline and said they were emphasizing safety and effectiveness over speed. Here's a rundown of the Biden and Harris statements cited in the video. The video included only the parts that are in bold, but we've provided the fuller context around them. Harris' statements Harris was asked in a Sept. 6, 2020, interview whether she would take a vaccine if it was approved before the election. She replied: 'Well, I think that's going to be an issue for all of us. I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump. And it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about. I will not take his word for it. He wants us to inject bleach. I - no, I will not take his word.' Harris was asked in an Oct. 7, 2020, vice presidential debate if she would take a vaccine if the Trump administration approved one. Referring to the leading government epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, she said: 'If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I'll be the first in line to take it. Absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I'm not taking it.' Biden's statements Biden's statements on the campaign trail show that he was concerned that politics would influence the development and deployment of the vaccine, and that Trump could not be trusted. In an interview for a journalism conference Aug. 6, 2020, he said: 'The way he (Trump) talks about the vaccine is not particularly rational. He's talking about it being ready, he's going to talk about moving it quicker than the scientists think it should be moved ... . People don't believe that he's telling the truth, therefore they're not at all certain they're going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it's not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done.' In a Sept. 2, 2020 TV interview, Biden referred to political influence over two federal agencies leading the fight against the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. He said: 'Look at what's happened. Enormous pressure put on the CDC not to put out the detailed guidelines. The enormous pressure being put on the FDA to say they're going, that the following protocol will in fact reduce, it will have a giant impact on COVID. All these things turn out not to be true, and when a president continues to mislead and lie, when we finally do, God willing, get a vaccine, who's going to take the shot? Who's going to take the shot? You going to be the first one to say, 'Put me - sign me up, they now say it's OK'? I'm not being facetious.' In a July 28, 2020 campaign speech, Biden stressed the need for transparency in developing the vaccine. He said: 'How are you going to distribute the vaccine when it arrives, when it arrives, when it's there? And the question of whether it's real, when it's there, that requires enormous transparency. You've got to make all of it available to other experts across the nation, so they can look and see, so there's consensus this is a safe vaccine. Because already you have, what percent is American people saying if the vaccine were there tomorrow, they wouldn't take it? And it's not the usual anti-vaccine crowd. It's beyond that because people are losing faith in what the president says. Think about it.' In campaign remarks on Sept. 7, 2020, Biden outlined steps he would take to address the pandemic, including masks and contact tracing, adding: 'Charting a clear path of science-based vaccines, free from politics. I get asked the question: 'If the president announced tomorrow we have a vaccine, would you take it?' Only if it was completely transparent, that other experts in the country could look at it, only if we knew all of what went into it. Because so far, nothing he's told us has been true.' The following week, Biden restated his concern about politics intervening in vaccine development: 'Americans have had to endure President Trump's incompetence and dishonesty, when it comes to testing and personal protective equipment. We can't afford to repeat those fiascos when it comes to a vaccine. ... Let me be clear: I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don't trust Donald Trump, and at this moment, the American people can't either. Last week, Senator Harris and I laid out three questions this administration's going to have to answer to assure the American people that politics will not play a role whatsoever in the vaccine process. If Donald Trump can't give answers and the administration can't give answers to these three questions, the American people should not have confidence.' | Our ruling A video on social media suggests that Biden and Harris distrusted COVID-19 vaccines. The video was selectively edited to leave out the context of their statements. Their full statements show they were raising doubts about Trump's trustworthiness, his ability to roll out the vaccines safely and the risk of political influence over vaccine development. We rate the video False. | [
"106867-proof-30-87b2bad198ddae6feda0ad4f0c102562.jpg"
]
|
If masks prevent coronavirus, governors would have given them to prison inmates instead of releasing them. | Contradiction | Health officials and governors in states hit hard by COVID-19 are recommending masks to help contain the spread of the virus. But if masks really work, a Facebook post asks rhetorically, why aren't governors using them more in jails and prisons that have become COVID-19 hotspots? The post - accompanying images of governors Mario Cuomo of New York, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California - claims the three Democrats have 'released thousands of dangerous prisoners into the public to kill innocent people and cause stress to our citizens,' and that the governors 'make' citizens wear masks. 'If the masks actually work to prevent COVID-19,' the post continues, 'then why didn't we just hand them out to all inmates ... instead of releasing them to prevent the spread?' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It is inaccurate on several fronts. Medical experts now agree that face coverings help slow the spread of the coronavirus, and the states cited in the post have distributed masks to inmates. Meanwhile, states that are releasing inmates are considering the potential danger to the public in deciding which ones to release. Claim overstates prison releases Across the nation in response to the coronavirus, many more inmates are being released from local jails - which hold people charged with crimes or convicted of low-level crimes - than from prisons, which mostly hold people convicted of felonies. That's according to the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts think tank that advocates for reducing the American prison population, and the New York Times. (In Florida, an inmate released from the Hillsborough County jail, where he was being held on nonviolent drug charges, was charged with second-degree murder the next day.) Some are being released from prisons. In New York, Michigan and California, thousands of prison inmates have been released in response to the coronavirus. The Facebook claim goes too far in characterizing them all as posing a threat to kill. In New York, Cuomo announced in April that pregnant women with less than six months remaining on their sentences for nonviolent offenses would be released from prison. The state announced in March that up to 1,100 inmates being held in local jails for low-level parole violations and deemed not a danger to the public would be released to stem the flow of coronavirus cases in the correctional system. Michigan is releasing 200 prison inmates per week because of the coronavirus, WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Mich., reported on April 14. The state is looking to first release inmates eligible for parole who are nonviolent offenders older than 60 with health issues, though no offenses are off-limits, the report said. California announced in March that it planned to release as many as 3,500 prison inmates by expediting the transition to parole for nonviolent offenders with 60 days or less left on their sentences. Why COVID-19 spreads in prisons Correctional and detention facilities pose 'unique challenges' in combating COVID-19, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Inmates live, work and eat in close settings, heightening the potential for the virus to spread. The virus can be brought into the facility in many ways, including through staff, medical professionals or others who enter from the outside. And options for isolating inmates are limited, the CDC notes. Across the country, more than 25,000 prison inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 370 of them have died, according to the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that reports on criminal justice. Staff and inmates are required to wear masks amid large outbreaks: New York: More than 1,200 prison staff have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the state. The Department of Corrections requires all staff to wear face masks while on duty and supplies all inmates with surgical-type masks. Michigan: There are more than 2,100 COVID-19 infections among prisoners and Michigan ranks third for the number of prisoner cases, according to the Marshall Project. Each prison employee and inmate has received three masks that can be laundered and worn again, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections. Staff are expected to wear a mask during their entire shift, and prisoners are expected to wear masks except while eating, sleeping or showering. California: More than 430 cases of COVID-19, including five deaths, have been confirmed at the California Institution for Men in Chino, with tents being set up to provide more space and treatment for inmates, the Sacramento Bee reported. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says it provides masks and hand sanitizer to all staff and prisoners. The effectiveness of masks While masks alone cannot stop the spread of the coronavirus, health officials agree that facial coverings, including ones made of fabric, help slow the spread of the virus, as we've reported. The CDC recommends that nearly everyone wear a facial covering while out in public and in areas where social distancing isn't possible. Higher medical-grade masks offer the most protection, but homemade masks are also effective, particularly when they fit snugly and are made of multiple layers. New research since the start of the coronavirus outbreak supports the use of masks. For correctional facilities, a May 15 CDC report recommends cloth facial coverings, along with physical distancing, movement restrictions and other measures. 'Prompt identification of COVID-19 cases and consistent application of prevention measures are critical to protecting incarcerated and detained persons, correctional and detention facility staff members, and the communities to which they return,' the report said. | Our ruling A Facebook post claimed that if masks prevent coronavirus, governors in New York, Michigan and California would have given them to prison inmates instead of releasing them. Experts agree that wearing facial coverings in close settings provides some measure of protection against spreading the coronavirus. New York, Michigan and California prisons are providing masks to inmates, as well as staff, as part of their COVID-19 response. Inmates in those states are being freed early as a way to try to limit the spread of COVID-19 - mostly nonviolent offenders or those who aren't seen as a safety threat. We rate the statement False. Correction, June 8, 2020: Michigan had more than 2,100 state prisoners with COVID-19, not more than 2,100 state prisoner COVID-19 deaths. | [
"106872-proof-24-ab9269fdb699f597f691aba44f646f57.jpg"
]
|
If masks prevent coronavirus, governors would have given them to prison inmates instead of releasing them. | Contradiction | Health officials and governors in states hit hard by COVID-19 are recommending masks to help contain the spread of the virus. But if masks really work, a Facebook post asks rhetorically, why aren't governors using them more in jails and prisons that have become COVID-19 hotspots? The post - accompanying images of governors Mario Cuomo of New York, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California - claims the three Democrats have 'released thousands of dangerous prisoners into the public to kill innocent people and cause stress to our citizens,' and that the governors 'make' citizens wear masks. 'If the masks actually work to prevent COVID-19,' the post continues, 'then why didn't we just hand them out to all inmates ... instead of releasing them to prevent the spread?' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It is inaccurate on several fronts. Medical experts now agree that face coverings help slow the spread of the coronavirus, and the states cited in the post have distributed masks to inmates. Meanwhile, states that are releasing inmates are considering the potential danger to the public in deciding which ones to release. Claim overstates prison releases Across the nation in response to the coronavirus, many more inmates are being released from local jails - which hold people charged with crimes or convicted of low-level crimes - than from prisons, which mostly hold people convicted of felonies. That's according to the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts think tank that advocates for reducing the American prison population, and the New York Times. (In Florida, an inmate released from the Hillsborough County jail, where he was being held on nonviolent drug charges, was charged with second-degree murder the next day.) Some are being released from prisons. In New York, Michigan and California, thousands of prison inmates have been released in response to the coronavirus. The Facebook claim goes too far in characterizing them all as posing a threat to kill. In New York, Cuomo announced in April that pregnant women with less than six months remaining on their sentences for nonviolent offenses would be released from prison. The state announced in March that up to 1,100 inmates being held in local jails for low-level parole violations and deemed not a danger to the public would be released to stem the flow of coronavirus cases in the correctional system. Michigan is releasing 200 prison inmates per week because of the coronavirus, WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Mich., reported on April 14. The state is looking to first release inmates eligible for parole who are nonviolent offenders older than 60 with health issues, though no offenses are off-limits, the report said. California announced in March that it planned to release as many as 3,500 prison inmates by expediting the transition to parole for nonviolent offenders with 60 days or less left on their sentences. Why COVID-19 spreads in prisons Correctional and detention facilities pose 'unique challenges' in combating COVID-19, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Inmates live, work and eat in close settings, heightening the potential for the virus to spread. The virus can be brought into the facility in many ways, including through staff, medical professionals or others who enter from the outside. And options for isolating inmates are limited, the CDC notes. Across the country, more than 25,000 prison inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 370 of them have died, according to the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that reports on criminal justice. Staff and inmates are required to wear masks amid large outbreaks: New York: More than 1,200 prison staff have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the state. The Department of Corrections requires all staff to wear face masks while on duty and supplies all inmates with surgical-type masks. Michigan: There are more than 2,100 COVID-19 infections among prisoners and Michigan ranks third for the number of prisoner cases, according to the Marshall Project. Each prison employee and inmate has received three masks that can be laundered and worn again, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections. Staff are expected to wear a mask during their entire shift, and prisoners are expected to wear masks except while eating, sleeping or showering. California: More than 430 cases of COVID-19, including five deaths, have been confirmed at the California Institution for Men in Chino, with tents being set up to provide more space and treatment for inmates, the Sacramento Bee reported. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says it provides masks and hand sanitizer to all staff and prisoners. The effectiveness of masks While masks alone cannot stop the spread of the coronavirus, health officials agree that facial coverings, including ones made of fabric, help slow the spread of the virus, as we've reported. The CDC recommends that nearly everyone wear a facial covering while out in public and in areas where social distancing isn't possible. Higher medical-grade masks offer the most protection, but homemade masks are also effective, particularly when they fit snugly and are made of multiple layers. New research since the start of the coronavirus outbreak supports the use of masks. For correctional facilities, a May 15 CDC report recommends cloth facial coverings, along with physical distancing, movement restrictions and other measures. 'Prompt identification of COVID-19 cases and consistent application of prevention measures are critical to protecting incarcerated and detained persons, correctional and detention facility staff members, and the communities to which they return,' the report said. | Our ruling A Facebook post claimed that if masks prevent coronavirus, governors in New York, Michigan and California would have given them to prison inmates instead of releasing them. Experts agree that wearing facial coverings in close settings provides some measure of protection against spreading the coronavirus. New York, Michigan and California prisons are providing masks to inmates, as well as staff, as part of their COVID-19 response. Inmates in those states are being freed early as a way to try to limit the spread of COVID-19 - mostly nonviolent offenders or those who aren't seen as a safety threat. We rate the statement False. Correction, June 8, 2020: Michigan had more than 2,100 state prisoners with COVID-19, not more than 2,100 state prisoner COVID-19 deaths. | [
"106872-proof-24-ab9269fdb699f597f691aba44f646f57.jpg"
]
|
If masks prevent coronavirus, governors would have given them to prison inmates instead of releasing them. | Contradiction | Health officials and governors in states hit hard by COVID-19 are recommending masks to help contain the spread of the virus. But if masks really work, a Facebook post asks rhetorically, why aren't governors using them more in jails and prisons that have become COVID-19 hotspots? The post - accompanying images of governors Mario Cuomo of New York, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California - claims the three Democrats have 'released thousands of dangerous prisoners into the public to kill innocent people and cause stress to our citizens,' and that the governors 'make' citizens wear masks. 'If the masks actually work to prevent COVID-19,' the post continues, 'then why didn't we just hand them out to all inmates ... instead of releasing them to prevent the spread?' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It is inaccurate on several fronts. Medical experts now agree that face coverings help slow the spread of the coronavirus, and the states cited in the post have distributed masks to inmates. Meanwhile, states that are releasing inmates are considering the potential danger to the public in deciding which ones to release. Claim overstates prison releases Across the nation in response to the coronavirus, many more inmates are being released from local jails - which hold people charged with crimes or convicted of low-level crimes - than from prisons, which mostly hold people convicted of felonies. That's according to the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts think tank that advocates for reducing the American prison population, and the New York Times. (In Florida, an inmate released from the Hillsborough County jail, where he was being held on nonviolent drug charges, was charged with second-degree murder the next day.) Some are being released from prisons. In New York, Michigan and California, thousands of prison inmates have been released in response to the coronavirus. The Facebook claim goes too far in characterizing them all as posing a threat to kill. In New York, Cuomo announced in April that pregnant women with less than six months remaining on their sentences for nonviolent offenses would be released from prison. The state announced in March that up to 1,100 inmates being held in local jails for low-level parole violations and deemed not a danger to the public would be released to stem the flow of coronavirus cases in the correctional system. Michigan is releasing 200 prison inmates per week because of the coronavirus, WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Mich., reported on April 14. The state is looking to first release inmates eligible for parole who are nonviolent offenders older than 60 with health issues, though no offenses are off-limits, the report said. California announced in March that it planned to release as many as 3,500 prison inmates by expediting the transition to parole for nonviolent offenders with 60 days or less left on their sentences. Why COVID-19 spreads in prisons Correctional and detention facilities pose 'unique challenges' in combating COVID-19, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Inmates live, work and eat in close settings, heightening the potential for the virus to spread. The virus can be brought into the facility in many ways, including through staff, medical professionals or others who enter from the outside. And options for isolating inmates are limited, the CDC notes. Across the country, more than 25,000 prison inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 370 of them have died, according to the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that reports on criminal justice. Staff and inmates are required to wear masks amid large outbreaks: New York: More than 1,200 prison staff have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the state. The Department of Corrections requires all staff to wear face masks while on duty and supplies all inmates with surgical-type masks. Michigan: There are more than 2,100 COVID-19 infections among prisoners and Michigan ranks third for the number of prisoner cases, according to the Marshall Project. Each prison employee and inmate has received three masks that can be laundered and worn again, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections. Staff are expected to wear a mask during their entire shift, and prisoners are expected to wear masks except while eating, sleeping or showering. California: More than 430 cases of COVID-19, including five deaths, have been confirmed at the California Institution for Men in Chino, with tents being set up to provide more space and treatment for inmates, the Sacramento Bee reported. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says it provides masks and hand sanitizer to all staff and prisoners. The effectiveness of masks While masks alone cannot stop the spread of the coronavirus, health officials agree that facial coverings, including ones made of fabric, help slow the spread of the virus, as we've reported. The CDC recommends that nearly everyone wear a facial covering while out in public and in areas where social distancing isn't possible. Higher medical-grade masks offer the most protection, but homemade masks are also effective, particularly when they fit snugly and are made of multiple layers. New research since the start of the coronavirus outbreak supports the use of masks. For correctional facilities, a May 15 CDC report recommends cloth facial coverings, along with physical distancing, movement restrictions and other measures. 'Prompt identification of COVID-19 cases and consistent application of prevention measures are critical to protecting incarcerated and detained persons, correctional and detention facility staff members, and the communities to which they return,' the report said. | Our ruling A Facebook post claimed that if masks prevent coronavirus, governors in New York, Michigan and California would have given them to prison inmates instead of releasing them. Experts agree that wearing facial coverings in close settings provides some measure of protection against spreading the coronavirus. New York, Michigan and California prisons are providing masks to inmates, as well as staff, as part of their COVID-19 response. Inmates in those states are being freed early as a way to try to limit the spread of COVID-19 - mostly nonviolent offenders or those who aren't seen as a safety threat. We rate the statement False. Correction, June 8, 2020: Michigan had more than 2,100 state prisoners with COVID-19, not more than 2,100 state prisoner COVID-19 deaths. | [
"106872-proof-24-ab9269fdb699f597f691aba44f646f57.jpg"
]
|
Michigan governor reopened Traverse City 'so she could have her daughter's open house. | Contradiction | Gov. Gretchen Whitmer continues to be criticized personally over her stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic - even when she's relaxing them. Social media posts have questioned how faithfully she's following her own orders and guidance. We rated as False a claim that the governor was with her family on May 20 at her second home. Also False was a claim that Whitmer was on Mackinac Island, a popular Michigan vacation spot, on May 24, 'ignoring mask and social distancing rules.' With the rules now relaxed in some areas, the governor's motives, too, are coming under question. A May 20 Facebook post claimed: 'So, the governor opened up Traverse City so she could have her daughter's open house this weekend. Imagine that.' The post (archived here) was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Whitmer issued an executive order on May 18 that partially opened two sparsely populated regions, effective May 22. The order applied to the entire Upper Peninsula and the northern reaches of the Lower Peninsula. The latter region, referred to as the 'Traverse City Region' in the state's reopening plan, includes Traverse City, a tourism hub located on a bay near the Lake Michigan shoreline, about 180 miles northwest of the capital, Lansing. The order allowed for the opening of retail stores, restaurants, bars and some offices, and permitted social gatherings of up to 10 people. But it also included restrictions, such as limiting restaurant seating to 50% of normal capacity. Whitmer and her husband, Marc Mallory, have five children - including Whitmer's older daughter, Sydney Shrewsbury, a graduating high school senior. The couple own a vacation home in the Traverse City region. But Whitmer's spokeswoman, Tiffany Brown, said there was no family graduation party held in the Traverse City area over the weekend of May 23-24 and that the governor was not in the area. There is some evidence that Mallory could have been at the couple's vacation home in Elk Rapids, 17 miles northeast of Traverse City, on May 20, the date of the Facebook post. Using public records searches and Google Earth, we confirmed that the car in a published photo belongs to Mallory, and the house is the family's property on Birch Lake. The Detroit News reported that the owner of NorthShore Dock LLC, a company near Birch Lake, said in Facebook posts that Mallory had called to try to get his boat in the water before the Memorial Day weekend, despite a heavy backlog. Whitmer said that Mallory was joking on the call when he asked whether his status as the governor's husband would help get his boat in the water. | Our ruling A Facebook post said Whitmer relaxed stay-at-home rules in Traverse City in time for Memorial Day weekend so she could have her daughter's open house. Whitmer relaxed stay-at-home rules in the region, but her office said she did not have a family event there and was not in the region that weekend. We rate the post False. | []
|
Michigan governor reopened Traverse City 'so she could have her daughter's open house. | Contradiction | Gov. Gretchen Whitmer continues to be criticized personally over her stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic - even when she's relaxing them. Social media posts have questioned how faithfully she's following her own orders and guidance. We rated as False a claim that the governor was with her family on May 20 at her second home. Also False was a claim that Whitmer was on Mackinac Island, a popular Michigan vacation spot, on May 24, 'ignoring mask and social distancing rules.' With the rules now relaxed in some areas, the governor's motives, too, are coming under question. A May 20 Facebook post claimed: 'So, the governor opened up Traverse City so she could have her daughter's open house this weekend. Imagine that.' The post (archived here) was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Whitmer issued an executive order on May 18 that partially opened two sparsely populated regions, effective May 22. The order applied to the entire Upper Peninsula and the northern reaches of the Lower Peninsula. The latter region, referred to as the 'Traverse City Region' in the state's reopening plan, includes Traverse City, a tourism hub located on a bay near the Lake Michigan shoreline, about 180 miles northwest of the capital, Lansing. The order allowed for the opening of retail stores, restaurants, bars and some offices, and permitted social gatherings of up to 10 people. But it also included restrictions, such as limiting restaurant seating to 50% of normal capacity. Whitmer and her husband, Marc Mallory, have five children - including Whitmer's older daughter, Sydney Shrewsbury, a graduating high school senior. The couple own a vacation home in the Traverse City region. But Whitmer's spokeswoman, Tiffany Brown, said there was no family graduation party held in the Traverse City area over the weekend of May 23-24 and that the governor was not in the area. There is some evidence that Mallory could have been at the couple's vacation home in Elk Rapids, 17 miles northeast of Traverse City, on May 20, the date of the Facebook post. Using public records searches and Google Earth, we confirmed that the car in a published photo belongs to Mallory, and the house is the family's property on Birch Lake. The Detroit News reported that the owner of NorthShore Dock LLC, a company near Birch Lake, said in Facebook posts that Mallory had called to try to get his boat in the water before the Memorial Day weekend, despite a heavy backlog. Whitmer said that Mallory was joking on the call when he asked whether his status as the governor's husband would help get his boat in the water. | Our ruling A Facebook post said Whitmer relaxed stay-at-home rules in Traverse City in time for Memorial Day weekend so she could have her daughter's open house. Whitmer relaxed stay-at-home rules in the region, but her office said she did not have a family event there and was not in the region that weekend. We rate the post False. | []
|
If you ask Amazon's Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says 'the government planned' it. | Contradiction | A Facebook video that racked up thousands of shares claims the coronavirus now spreading across the world was planned and released by the United States government - and it says that this claim is backed up by 'Alexa,' the voice of the Amazon Echo. Echo is a voice-activated home speaker that can provide the user with answers to questions and other content by searching the internet for information. Echo users connect with the device by conversing with 'Alexa,' the system's 'virtual assistant.' The March 31 video is a recording of a TikTok video playing on another smartphone. The man recording the Facebook video warns viewers of his fears that the TikTok video will be deleted from the platform. In the TikTok, a man asks his Amazon Echo, 'Alexa, did the government release the coronavirus?' In the video, Alexa's computer-generated voice responds: 'According to Event 201, the government planned this event, created the virus and had a simulation of how the countries would react. This simulation occurred October 18, 2019. The government released the virus among the population and has lost control of the outbreak.' The spread of misinformation about the coronavirus on TikTok and through Amazon Alexa have recently been reported by outlets such as WUSA9's VERIFY team and Vox. Let's take a closer look. What is Event 201? There was an Event 201, involving a simulated viral pandemic. And it did take place on Oct. 18, 2019, at a hotel in New York. But no actual virus was created or released. During the event, officials from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and 15 global business, government and public health leaders held a 3.5 hour simulation to view the potential effects of an infectious pandemic. The exercise consisted of pre-recorded news broadcasts, live 'staff' briefings, and moderated discussions on specific topics, the organizers said. The purpose of the simulation was to examine how industries, governments and public health leaders might have to join forces to combat a global health crisis. It was inspired by research published by the World Economic Forum, an international foundation that studies the intersection of business, politics and academics and their impacts on policy. The pandemic in the fictionalized scenario was caused by a coronavirus, of which there are many types. The study found that a pandemic could cause an average annual economic loss of 0.7% of global gross domestic product, or about $570 billion. The businesses and political leaders involved in the simulation were tasked with working together to create viable solutions to the theoretical pandemic. The participants' conclusion was that 'the next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering.' Now that the world is grappling with an actual coronavirus pandemic, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security has released a statement reaffirming that the simulation did not predict the current outbreak, but rather was an exercise to examine what would need to happen if one did occur. 'For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction,' the center said. 'Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic.' Alexa's Response Why did the question posed to Alexa bring up Event 201? That only happens in the TikTok video. We asked Alexa directly, and it brought up a different response. Alexa said, 'According to the World Health Organization, the exact cause of the current outbreak of COVID-19 is still under investigation. On December 31, 2019, it was reported to the WHO country office in China that a new coronavirus strain later, named COVID-19, was identified by Chinese researchers in connection with a pneumonia-like illness based in Wuhan city, China.' A spokesperson at Amazon told PolitiFact that the one appearing in the video 'is not Alexa's response to customers, and we have not been able to replicate this example.' The company said that any news Alexa is providing to customers about COVID-19 is from official government sources. The company suggested a couple of explanations why Alexa might have responded the way it did in the video. One possibility is that a customer set a specific response for Alexa. Responses can be recorded and scheduled, like a daily reminder service. This response would play only on that customer's device, not the system at large. Another possibility involves Alexa Skill Blueprints, which offer templates for trivia games, birthday cards, and flashcards. With this feature, users can create their own automated questions and responses. Our Ruling Facebook posts say that if you ask Amazon's Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says 'the government planned' it and refers to something called 'Event 201.' There was a project called Event 201 that simulated possible outcomes of a coronavirus pandemic, but it was a planning exercise and did not predict this specific COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, we were unable to elicit the same answer from Alexa, and Amazon told us that the answer to that question would be different. We rate the statement False. | Our Ruling Facebook posts say that if you ask Amazon's Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says 'the government planned' it and refers to something called 'Event 201.' There was a project called Event 201 that simulated possible outcomes of a coronavirus pandemic, but it was a planning exercise and did not predict this specific COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, we were unable to elicit the same answer from Alexa, and Amazon told us that the answer to that question would be different. We rate the statement False. | [
"106884-proof-22-40c1517d7c22e1a812f290377024e85e.jpg"
]
|
If you ask Amazon's Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says 'the government planned' it. | Contradiction | A Facebook video that racked up thousands of shares claims the coronavirus now spreading across the world was planned and released by the United States government - and it says that this claim is backed up by 'Alexa,' the voice of the Amazon Echo. Echo is a voice-activated home speaker that can provide the user with answers to questions and other content by searching the internet for information. Echo users connect with the device by conversing with 'Alexa,' the system's 'virtual assistant.' The March 31 video is a recording of a TikTok video playing on another smartphone. The man recording the Facebook video warns viewers of his fears that the TikTok video will be deleted from the platform. In the TikTok, a man asks his Amazon Echo, 'Alexa, did the government release the coronavirus?' In the video, Alexa's computer-generated voice responds: 'According to Event 201, the government planned this event, created the virus and had a simulation of how the countries would react. This simulation occurred October 18, 2019. The government released the virus among the population and has lost control of the outbreak.' The spread of misinformation about the coronavirus on TikTok and through Amazon Alexa have recently been reported by outlets such as WUSA9's VERIFY team and Vox. Let's take a closer look. What is Event 201? There was an Event 201, involving a simulated viral pandemic. And it did take place on Oct. 18, 2019, at a hotel in New York. But no actual virus was created or released. During the event, officials from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and 15 global business, government and public health leaders held a 3.5 hour simulation to view the potential effects of an infectious pandemic. The exercise consisted of pre-recorded news broadcasts, live 'staff' briefings, and moderated discussions on specific topics, the organizers said. The purpose of the simulation was to examine how industries, governments and public health leaders might have to join forces to combat a global health crisis. It was inspired by research published by the World Economic Forum, an international foundation that studies the intersection of business, politics and academics and their impacts on policy. The pandemic in the fictionalized scenario was caused by a coronavirus, of which there are many types. The study found that a pandemic could cause an average annual economic loss of 0.7% of global gross domestic product, or about $570 billion. The businesses and political leaders involved in the simulation were tasked with working together to create viable solutions to the theoretical pandemic. The participants' conclusion was that 'the next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering.' Now that the world is grappling with an actual coronavirus pandemic, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security has released a statement reaffirming that the simulation did not predict the current outbreak, but rather was an exercise to examine what would need to happen if one did occur. 'For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction,' the center said. 'Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic.' Alexa's Response Why did the question posed to Alexa bring up Event 201? That only happens in the TikTok video. We asked Alexa directly, and it brought up a different response. Alexa said, 'According to the World Health Organization, the exact cause of the current outbreak of COVID-19 is still under investigation. On December 31, 2019, it was reported to the WHO country office in China that a new coronavirus strain later, named COVID-19, was identified by Chinese researchers in connection with a pneumonia-like illness based in Wuhan city, China.' A spokesperson at Amazon told PolitiFact that the one appearing in the video 'is not Alexa's response to customers, and we have not been able to replicate this example.' The company said that any news Alexa is providing to customers about COVID-19 is from official government sources. The company suggested a couple of explanations why Alexa might have responded the way it did in the video. One possibility is that a customer set a specific response for Alexa. Responses can be recorded and scheduled, like a daily reminder service. This response would play only on that customer's device, not the system at large. Another possibility involves Alexa Skill Blueprints, which offer templates for trivia games, birthday cards, and flashcards. With this feature, users can create their own automated questions and responses. Our Ruling Facebook posts say that if you ask Amazon's Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says 'the government planned' it and refers to something called 'Event 201.' There was a project called Event 201 that simulated possible outcomes of a coronavirus pandemic, but it was a planning exercise and did not predict this specific COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, we were unable to elicit the same answer from Alexa, and Amazon told us that the answer to that question would be different. We rate the statement False. | Our Ruling Facebook posts say that if you ask Amazon's Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says 'the government planned' it and refers to something called 'Event 201.' There was a project called Event 201 that simulated possible outcomes of a coronavirus pandemic, but it was a planning exercise and did not predict this specific COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, we were unable to elicit the same answer from Alexa, and Amazon told us that the answer to that question would be different. We rate the statement False. | [
"106884-proof-22-40c1517d7c22e1a812f290377024e85e.jpg"
]
|
Live Nation scheduled the 50,000-person Astroworld music festival at a venue that has a capacity of 20,000. | Contradiction | Last week's Astroworld music festival in Houston, where eight people died in a crush of fans, took place at a venue that was an appropriate size for the event, despite social media claims to the contrary. A viral Facebook post said event organizer Live Nation scheduled the 50,000-person Astroworld festival at a venue with a capacity of 20,000. The post also claimed that Live Nation was responsible for other supposed shortcomings at the event, including a lack of water stations and medical personnel. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The venue for the event, NRG Park, has a capacity of 200,000, based on fire codes. Despite the larger capacity, city officials limited attendance at the festival to 50,000, the city's fire chief told the Associated Press. Anecdotal reports have emerged about a lack of water stations and medical personnel, but they have not been substantiated by Houston officials. NRG Park is a 350-acre complex with four facilities, including NRG Stadium that's home to the Houston Texans NFL team. The park hosts concerts, exhibitions, sporting events and conventions, and its outdoor spaces are used for festivals, runs and sporting events. The Astroworld festival was held outdoors. Medical care for the festival was provided by a third-party contractor that was in charge of bringing in doctors, emergency medical technicians and others, Houston's fire chief told local TV station KXAN. The fire chief said he could not determine yet whether the third-party vendor had sufficient resources on site. The multi-day Astroworld festival was created by rapper and festival headliner Travis Scott in 2018, following the release of his third album, also named Astroworld. The crowd surge occurred Nov. 5 during Scott's performance. Scott has been arrested twice and charged with inciting riots at his concerts. He pleaded guilty to minor charges including reckless conduct and disorderly conduct, the New York Times reported. Live Nation, which reported $2.7 billion in revenue for its third quarter, is the world's largest live-event company. | Our ruling A viral Facebook post said event organizer Live Nation scheduled the 50,000-person Astroworld festival at a venue that has a capacity of 20,000. The venue has a capacity of 200,000, based on fire codes, and attendance was capped at 50,000. The claim also said that the event lacked sufficient water stations and medical personnel, but those reports are anecdotal and have not been substantiated by city officials. We rate this claim False. | [
"106888-proof-24-0448b60200d121105385ac83424bc325.jpg"
]
|
Live Nation scheduled the 50,000-person Astroworld music festival at a venue that has a capacity of 20,000. | Contradiction | Last week's Astroworld music festival in Houston, where eight people died in a crush of fans, took place at a venue that was an appropriate size for the event, despite social media claims to the contrary. A viral Facebook post said event organizer Live Nation scheduled the 50,000-person Astroworld festival at a venue with a capacity of 20,000. The post also claimed that Live Nation was responsible for other supposed shortcomings at the event, including a lack of water stations and medical personnel. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The venue for the event, NRG Park, has a capacity of 200,000, based on fire codes. Despite the larger capacity, city officials limited attendance at the festival to 50,000, the city's fire chief told the Associated Press. Anecdotal reports have emerged about a lack of water stations and medical personnel, but they have not been substantiated by Houston officials. NRG Park is a 350-acre complex with four facilities, including NRG Stadium that's home to the Houston Texans NFL team. The park hosts concerts, exhibitions, sporting events and conventions, and its outdoor spaces are used for festivals, runs and sporting events. The Astroworld festival was held outdoors. Medical care for the festival was provided by a third-party contractor that was in charge of bringing in doctors, emergency medical technicians and others, Houston's fire chief told local TV station KXAN. The fire chief said he could not determine yet whether the third-party vendor had sufficient resources on site. The multi-day Astroworld festival was created by rapper and festival headliner Travis Scott in 2018, following the release of his third album, also named Astroworld. The crowd surge occurred Nov. 5 during Scott's performance. Scott has been arrested twice and charged with inciting riots at his concerts. He pleaded guilty to minor charges including reckless conduct and disorderly conduct, the New York Times reported. Live Nation, which reported $2.7 billion in revenue for its third quarter, is the world's largest live-event company. | Our ruling A viral Facebook post said event organizer Live Nation scheduled the 50,000-person Astroworld festival at a venue that has a capacity of 20,000. The venue has a capacity of 200,000, based on fire codes, and attendance was capped at 50,000. The claim also said that the event lacked sufficient water stations and medical personnel, but those reports are anecdotal and have not been substantiated by city officials. We rate this claim False. | [
"106888-proof-24-0448b60200d121105385ac83424bc325.jpg"
]
|
November election data shows a 'stunning anomaly in the rejection rate of absentee ballots. | Contradiction | The November election has come under attack on a variety of fronts from a variety of sources. Former President Donald Trump and his backers have taken aim at voting machines, vote reporting, vote counting, the mail-in voting process and more. Many of those claims centered around Wisconsin, a key swing state that backed Trump in 2016 but supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Election officials in the state have been unanimous that it was a free and fair election, with no evidence of fraud outside the usual scattered cases - and certainly no fraud that would have reversed Biden's 20,000-vote margin of victory. Not to mention the recount that upheld the margin of victory. Three months later, many remain unconvinced. Conservative radio host Dan O'Donnell raised a new claim about election integrity in a Feb. 3, 2021, commentary piece written for the MacIver Institute, a conservative think tank based in Madison. In a piece headlined, 'Wisconsin's Miraculous Vanishing Ballot Rejection Rate,' O'Donnell asserted the low number of absentee ballots rejected in the November 2020 election was a 'stunning anomaly.' He implied something questionable was at play. 'This is nearly impossible to explain,' O'Donnell wrote. 'Did hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites suddenly figure out how to correctly fill out their ballots? Or was there a concerted effort to count as many ballots as possible without regard to whether they were correctly filled out? The evidence points toward the latter.' O'Donnell's core claim has two elements: That the rate of absentee rejection was an anomaly, and that the tally should be considered questionable - or even evidence of a conspiracy of some kind. We took a closer look at both elements. Absentee rate in line with historic trends O'Donnell's claim runs into immediate trouble when we look at the historic trend of absentee ballot rejections. His commentary included a chart showing six elections since April 2016, with four having an absentee rejection rate above 1.4%, and the November 2018 and November 2020 elections having a rejection rate of 0.2%. O'Donnell described this as evidence 'ballots suddenly stopped getting rejected in the two statewide races in which unpopular Republicans (Scott Walker and Donald Trump) were on the ballot.' But zooming out farther shows the November 2020 numbers were to be expected since November elections have consistently lower rejection rates for absentee ballots. From 2008 to 2020, clerks rejected an average of 0.62% of absentee ballots in November elections, according to Wisconsin Elections Commission data. The August, April and February elections ranged from 1.4% to 2.2%. In addition, the rejection rate in November elections has steadily dropped over time, decreasing every November but one from 2008 to 2020. The outlier election was in November 2016, due to a change in state law. In 2016, the state Legislature passed a law stating an absentee ballot may not be counted if it is missing the address of a witness. Every absentee ballot in Wisconsin must be signed by both the voter and a witness, who must also provide an address. As a result, the absentee rejection rate jumped from 0.31% in November 2014 to a 1.35% in November 2016. But election officials had become concerned some voters wouldn't be aware of the witness address requirement, so in October 2016 the commission - on a motion made and seconded by Republican members - voted to advise clerks they should fix missing address components based on 'reliable information.' This guidance passed very close to the November 2016 election, so it wasn't followed widely enough quickly enough to affect the rejection spike in that election, WEC spokesman Reid Magney said. Once clerks had time to incorporate the new guidance, the November rate resumed its descent - to 0.23% in November 2018 and 0.2% in November 2020. In other words, limiting the timeframe to 2016-20 as O'Donnell did treats the November 2016 number as a baseline and the November 2018 and 2020 numbers as outliers. Putting that data in context makes it clear 2016 is actually the outlier. And, of course, November 2020 is in line with similar elections in the past. Why the November dips? That brings us to the question of why November elections - in 2020 and before - would have lower ballot rejection rates than other elections. This is essentially the question O'Donnell's raises throughout his column, but he never contacted state election officials to seek out the answer, Magney said. It turns out, it's a pretty straightforward explanation. The difference in ballot rejection rates is primarily because of how people vote. November elections bring a surge in early voting, which is still counted as absentee but takes place in a clerk's office with the clerk as the witness. 'This eliminates chances that their ballot will be rejected for an insufficient (witness) certification,' Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, told PolitiFact Wisconsin in an email. Looking at 2016 to 2020, for example, elections commission data shows in-person absentee votes accounted for an average of 19% of all votes in November elections, but only 7.3% of the vote in the April elections - even with the spike in in-person early voting in April 2020 due to the pandemic. (We also checked elections further back to confirm this was an ongoing trend.) For those using traditional mail-in ballots, Woodall-Vogg said Milwaukee elections 'cured' - that is, used reliable information to fill out missing witness information, per commission guidance - a total of 1,063 ballots in November. That generally meant simply filling in 'Milwaukee, WI' for voters who included a street address but forgot the city and state and could be confirmed as living there. 'We wouldn't make presumptions about a witness's address; if we couldn't read the witness' name or there were multiple people by the same name, we would either call the voter or return their ballot via mail,' Woodall-Vogg said. Why did the rejection rate continue the downward trend in November 2020 despite the high volume of mail-in absentee ballots? Magney noted some improvement in rejection rate would be expected from April to November 2020 since in April many voters were casting a mail-in ballot for the first time and in a short timeframe, while in November they had more time to find witnesses and return ballots, and clerks had more time to send deficient ballots back to voters to be corrected. Woodall-Vogg also noted clerks around the state were taking steps to educate voters given the expected influx of absentee voting. 'Election administrators and community groups all made an intentional effort to educate voters on the requirements when voting by mail due to the increase with COVID,' Woodall-Vogg said in her email. 'The WEC created new absentee instructions which were finally in plain English and even included photos. The media covered the requirements far more than ever before, as did we via outlets like Facebook and media interviews. On the exterior of our drop boxes, we had large stickers with STOP signs, asking voters to check if they signed, their witness signed, and their witness provided their address.' Finally, Magney noted the rejection figures cited by O'Donnell are only one way to handle flawed absentee ballots, making it an imperfect measure of how many absentee ballots ultimately don't count. If a ballot is to be thrown out, some clerks mark this as a rejected ballot, while others record it an 'administrative ballot cancellation.' While the number of absentee ballot rejections dropped from April to November of 2020, the number of administrative ballot cancellations nearly quadrupled. 'The assignment of these labels is entirely at the discretion of local clerks,' Magney said in an email. What a conspiracy would require Before we move on to the ruling, let's pause for a moment to take a wider view. This is far from the first conspiracy claim involving the 2020 election. And it's a reminder that a good first step when examining any claim of coordinated wrongdoing is to consider the scope. If there were something nefarious at play, who would have to be in on it? The answer in this case stretches well into the quadruple digits. Wisconsin's elections are overseen by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, but we're not talking about a generic policy in this case. The rejection rate is the accumulation of thousands of individual, local decisions on whether (and how) to reject a given ballot. Those decisions are made by the 1,850 municipal clerks around the state, and the thousands more deputy clerks and volunteers they work with. Asked if he was alleging a coordinated effort across a group of nearly 2,000 clerks, O'Donnell said, 'Clearly ballot mistakes that were accepted in these elections would not have been, and were pretty obviously not, accepted in other elections.' | Our ruling O'Donnell asserted in an opinion piece that November election data shows a 'stunning anomaly in the rejection rate of absentee ballots.' But that rejection rate was neither stunning nor an anomaly. Election data from 2008 to 2020 shows November elections have consistently lower rejection rates than other elections, due primarily to the higher number of in-person early voting (which is included in absentee tallies). And the November rejection rates themselves have steadily dropped in each election aside from 2016, when a new law caused a one-year spike. The November 2018 and 2020 rejections rates were in line with that long-term trend. We rate this claim False. | [
"106893-proof-43-e97b92cac6e9a544649d79edc86c6ddf.jpg"
]
|
November election data shows a 'stunning anomaly in the rejection rate of absentee ballots. | Contradiction | The November election has come under attack on a variety of fronts from a variety of sources. Former President Donald Trump and his backers have taken aim at voting machines, vote reporting, vote counting, the mail-in voting process and more. Many of those claims centered around Wisconsin, a key swing state that backed Trump in 2016 but supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Election officials in the state have been unanimous that it was a free and fair election, with no evidence of fraud outside the usual scattered cases - and certainly no fraud that would have reversed Biden's 20,000-vote margin of victory. Not to mention the recount that upheld the margin of victory. Three months later, many remain unconvinced. Conservative radio host Dan O'Donnell raised a new claim about election integrity in a Feb. 3, 2021, commentary piece written for the MacIver Institute, a conservative think tank based in Madison. In a piece headlined, 'Wisconsin's Miraculous Vanishing Ballot Rejection Rate,' O'Donnell asserted the low number of absentee ballots rejected in the November 2020 election was a 'stunning anomaly.' He implied something questionable was at play. 'This is nearly impossible to explain,' O'Donnell wrote. 'Did hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites suddenly figure out how to correctly fill out their ballots? Or was there a concerted effort to count as many ballots as possible without regard to whether they were correctly filled out? The evidence points toward the latter.' O'Donnell's core claim has two elements: That the rate of absentee rejection was an anomaly, and that the tally should be considered questionable - or even evidence of a conspiracy of some kind. We took a closer look at both elements. Absentee rate in line with historic trends O'Donnell's claim runs into immediate trouble when we look at the historic trend of absentee ballot rejections. His commentary included a chart showing six elections since April 2016, with four having an absentee rejection rate above 1.4%, and the November 2018 and November 2020 elections having a rejection rate of 0.2%. O'Donnell described this as evidence 'ballots suddenly stopped getting rejected in the two statewide races in which unpopular Republicans (Scott Walker and Donald Trump) were on the ballot.' But zooming out farther shows the November 2020 numbers were to be expected since November elections have consistently lower rejection rates for absentee ballots. From 2008 to 2020, clerks rejected an average of 0.62% of absentee ballots in November elections, according to Wisconsin Elections Commission data. The August, April and February elections ranged from 1.4% to 2.2%. In addition, the rejection rate in November elections has steadily dropped over time, decreasing every November but one from 2008 to 2020. The outlier election was in November 2016, due to a change in state law. In 2016, the state Legislature passed a law stating an absentee ballot may not be counted if it is missing the address of a witness. Every absentee ballot in Wisconsin must be signed by both the voter and a witness, who must also provide an address. As a result, the absentee rejection rate jumped from 0.31% in November 2014 to a 1.35% in November 2016. But election officials had become concerned some voters wouldn't be aware of the witness address requirement, so in October 2016 the commission - on a motion made and seconded by Republican members - voted to advise clerks they should fix missing address components based on 'reliable information.' This guidance passed very close to the November 2016 election, so it wasn't followed widely enough quickly enough to affect the rejection spike in that election, WEC spokesman Reid Magney said. Once clerks had time to incorporate the new guidance, the November rate resumed its descent - to 0.23% in November 2018 and 0.2% in November 2020. In other words, limiting the timeframe to 2016-20 as O'Donnell did treats the November 2016 number as a baseline and the November 2018 and 2020 numbers as outliers. Putting that data in context makes it clear 2016 is actually the outlier. And, of course, November 2020 is in line with similar elections in the past. Why the November dips? That brings us to the question of why November elections - in 2020 and before - would have lower ballot rejection rates than other elections. This is essentially the question O'Donnell's raises throughout his column, but he never contacted state election officials to seek out the answer, Magney said. It turns out, it's a pretty straightforward explanation. The difference in ballot rejection rates is primarily because of how people vote. November elections bring a surge in early voting, which is still counted as absentee but takes place in a clerk's office with the clerk as the witness. 'This eliminates chances that their ballot will be rejected for an insufficient (witness) certification,' Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, told PolitiFact Wisconsin in an email. Looking at 2016 to 2020, for example, elections commission data shows in-person absentee votes accounted for an average of 19% of all votes in November elections, but only 7.3% of the vote in the April elections - even with the spike in in-person early voting in April 2020 due to the pandemic. (We also checked elections further back to confirm this was an ongoing trend.) For those using traditional mail-in ballots, Woodall-Vogg said Milwaukee elections 'cured' - that is, used reliable information to fill out missing witness information, per commission guidance - a total of 1,063 ballots in November. That generally meant simply filling in 'Milwaukee, WI' for voters who included a street address but forgot the city and state and could be confirmed as living there. 'We wouldn't make presumptions about a witness's address; if we couldn't read the witness' name or there were multiple people by the same name, we would either call the voter or return their ballot via mail,' Woodall-Vogg said. Why did the rejection rate continue the downward trend in November 2020 despite the high volume of mail-in absentee ballots? Magney noted some improvement in rejection rate would be expected from April to November 2020 since in April many voters were casting a mail-in ballot for the first time and in a short timeframe, while in November they had more time to find witnesses and return ballots, and clerks had more time to send deficient ballots back to voters to be corrected. Woodall-Vogg also noted clerks around the state were taking steps to educate voters given the expected influx of absentee voting. 'Election administrators and community groups all made an intentional effort to educate voters on the requirements when voting by mail due to the increase with COVID,' Woodall-Vogg said in her email. 'The WEC created new absentee instructions which were finally in plain English and even included photos. The media covered the requirements far more than ever before, as did we via outlets like Facebook and media interviews. On the exterior of our drop boxes, we had large stickers with STOP signs, asking voters to check if they signed, their witness signed, and their witness provided their address.' Finally, Magney noted the rejection figures cited by O'Donnell are only one way to handle flawed absentee ballots, making it an imperfect measure of how many absentee ballots ultimately don't count. If a ballot is to be thrown out, some clerks mark this as a rejected ballot, while others record it an 'administrative ballot cancellation.' While the number of absentee ballot rejections dropped from April to November of 2020, the number of administrative ballot cancellations nearly quadrupled. 'The assignment of these labels is entirely at the discretion of local clerks,' Magney said in an email. What a conspiracy would require Before we move on to the ruling, let's pause for a moment to take a wider view. This is far from the first conspiracy claim involving the 2020 election. And it's a reminder that a good first step when examining any claim of coordinated wrongdoing is to consider the scope. If there were something nefarious at play, who would have to be in on it? The answer in this case stretches well into the quadruple digits. Wisconsin's elections are overseen by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, but we're not talking about a generic policy in this case. The rejection rate is the accumulation of thousands of individual, local decisions on whether (and how) to reject a given ballot. Those decisions are made by the 1,850 municipal clerks around the state, and the thousands more deputy clerks and volunteers they work with. Asked if he was alleging a coordinated effort across a group of nearly 2,000 clerks, O'Donnell said, 'Clearly ballot mistakes that were accepted in these elections would not have been, and were pretty obviously not, accepted in other elections.' | Our ruling O'Donnell asserted in an opinion piece that November election data shows a 'stunning anomaly in the rejection rate of absentee ballots.' But that rejection rate was neither stunning nor an anomaly. Election data from 2008 to 2020 shows November elections have consistently lower rejection rates than other elections, due primarily to the higher number of in-person early voting (which is included in absentee tallies). And the November rejection rates themselves have steadily dropped in each election aside from 2016, when a new law caused a one-year spike. The November 2018 and 2020 rejections rates were in line with that long-term trend. We rate this claim False. | [
"106893-proof-43-e97b92cac6e9a544649d79edc86c6ddf.jpg"
]
|
November election data shows a 'stunning anomaly in the rejection rate of absentee ballots. | Contradiction | The November election has come under attack on a variety of fronts from a variety of sources. Former President Donald Trump and his backers have taken aim at voting machines, vote reporting, vote counting, the mail-in voting process and more. Many of those claims centered around Wisconsin, a key swing state that backed Trump in 2016 but supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Election officials in the state have been unanimous that it was a free and fair election, with no evidence of fraud outside the usual scattered cases - and certainly no fraud that would have reversed Biden's 20,000-vote margin of victory. Not to mention the recount that upheld the margin of victory. Three months later, many remain unconvinced. Conservative radio host Dan O'Donnell raised a new claim about election integrity in a Feb. 3, 2021, commentary piece written for the MacIver Institute, a conservative think tank based in Madison. In a piece headlined, 'Wisconsin's Miraculous Vanishing Ballot Rejection Rate,' O'Donnell asserted the low number of absentee ballots rejected in the November 2020 election was a 'stunning anomaly.' He implied something questionable was at play. 'This is nearly impossible to explain,' O'Donnell wrote. 'Did hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites suddenly figure out how to correctly fill out their ballots? Or was there a concerted effort to count as many ballots as possible without regard to whether they were correctly filled out? The evidence points toward the latter.' O'Donnell's core claim has two elements: That the rate of absentee rejection was an anomaly, and that the tally should be considered questionable - or even evidence of a conspiracy of some kind. We took a closer look at both elements. Absentee rate in line with historic trends O'Donnell's claim runs into immediate trouble when we look at the historic trend of absentee ballot rejections. His commentary included a chart showing six elections since April 2016, with four having an absentee rejection rate above 1.4%, and the November 2018 and November 2020 elections having a rejection rate of 0.2%. O'Donnell described this as evidence 'ballots suddenly stopped getting rejected in the two statewide races in which unpopular Republicans (Scott Walker and Donald Trump) were on the ballot.' But zooming out farther shows the November 2020 numbers were to be expected since November elections have consistently lower rejection rates for absentee ballots. From 2008 to 2020, clerks rejected an average of 0.62% of absentee ballots in November elections, according to Wisconsin Elections Commission data. The August, April and February elections ranged from 1.4% to 2.2%. In addition, the rejection rate in November elections has steadily dropped over time, decreasing every November but one from 2008 to 2020. The outlier election was in November 2016, due to a change in state law. In 2016, the state Legislature passed a law stating an absentee ballot may not be counted if it is missing the address of a witness. Every absentee ballot in Wisconsin must be signed by both the voter and a witness, who must also provide an address. As a result, the absentee rejection rate jumped from 0.31% in November 2014 to a 1.35% in November 2016. But election officials had become concerned some voters wouldn't be aware of the witness address requirement, so in October 2016 the commission - on a motion made and seconded by Republican members - voted to advise clerks they should fix missing address components based on 'reliable information.' This guidance passed very close to the November 2016 election, so it wasn't followed widely enough quickly enough to affect the rejection spike in that election, WEC spokesman Reid Magney said. Once clerks had time to incorporate the new guidance, the November rate resumed its descent - to 0.23% in November 2018 and 0.2% in November 2020. In other words, limiting the timeframe to 2016-20 as O'Donnell did treats the November 2016 number as a baseline and the November 2018 and 2020 numbers as outliers. Putting that data in context makes it clear 2016 is actually the outlier. And, of course, November 2020 is in line with similar elections in the past. Why the November dips? That brings us to the question of why November elections - in 2020 and before - would have lower ballot rejection rates than other elections. This is essentially the question O'Donnell's raises throughout his column, but he never contacted state election officials to seek out the answer, Magney said. It turns out, it's a pretty straightforward explanation. The difference in ballot rejection rates is primarily because of how people vote. November elections bring a surge in early voting, which is still counted as absentee but takes place in a clerk's office with the clerk as the witness. 'This eliminates chances that their ballot will be rejected for an insufficient (witness) certification,' Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, told PolitiFact Wisconsin in an email. Looking at 2016 to 2020, for example, elections commission data shows in-person absentee votes accounted for an average of 19% of all votes in November elections, but only 7.3% of the vote in the April elections - even with the spike in in-person early voting in April 2020 due to the pandemic. (We also checked elections further back to confirm this was an ongoing trend.) For those using traditional mail-in ballots, Woodall-Vogg said Milwaukee elections 'cured' - that is, used reliable information to fill out missing witness information, per commission guidance - a total of 1,063 ballots in November. That generally meant simply filling in 'Milwaukee, WI' for voters who included a street address but forgot the city and state and could be confirmed as living there. 'We wouldn't make presumptions about a witness's address; if we couldn't read the witness' name or there were multiple people by the same name, we would either call the voter or return their ballot via mail,' Woodall-Vogg said. Why did the rejection rate continue the downward trend in November 2020 despite the high volume of mail-in absentee ballots? Magney noted some improvement in rejection rate would be expected from April to November 2020 since in April many voters were casting a mail-in ballot for the first time and in a short timeframe, while in November they had more time to find witnesses and return ballots, and clerks had more time to send deficient ballots back to voters to be corrected. Woodall-Vogg also noted clerks around the state were taking steps to educate voters given the expected influx of absentee voting. 'Election administrators and community groups all made an intentional effort to educate voters on the requirements when voting by mail due to the increase with COVID,' Woodall-Vogg said in her email. 'The WEC created new absentee instructions which were finally in plain English and even included photos. The media covered the requirements far more than ever before, as did we via outlets like Facebook and media interviews. On the exterior of our drop boxes, we had large stickers with STOP signs, asking voters to check if they signed, their witness signed, and their witness provided their address.' Finally, Magney noted the rejection figures cited by O'Donnell are only one way to handle flawed absentee ballots, making it an imperfect measure of how many absentee ballots ultimately don't count. If a ballot is to be thrown out, some clerks mark this as a rejected ballot, while others record it an 'administrative ballot cancellation.' While the number of absentee ballot rejections dropped from April to November of 2020, the number of administrative ballot cancellations nearly quadrupled. 'The assignment of these labels is entirely at the discretion of local clerks,' Magney said in an email. What a conspiracy would require Before we move on to the ruling, let's pause for a moment to take a wider view. This is far from the first conspiracy claim involving the 2020 election. And it's a reminder that a good first step when examining any claim of coordinated wrongdoing is to consider the scope. If there were something nefarious at play, who would have to be in on it? The answer in this case stretches well into the quadruple digits. Wisconsin's elections are overseen by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, but we're not talking about a generic policy in this case. The rejection rate is the accumulation of thousands of individual, local decisions on whether (and how) to reject a given ballot. Those decisions are made by the 1,850 municipal clerks around the state, and the thousands more deputy clerks and volunteers they work with. Asked if he was alleging a coordinated effort across a group of nearly 2,000 clerks, O'Donnell said, 'Clearly ballot mistakes that were accepted in these elections would not have been, and were pretty obviously not, accepted in other elections.' | Our ruling O'Donnell asserted in an opinion piece that November election data shows a 'stunning anomaly in the rejection rate of absentee ballots.' But that rejection rate was neither stunning nor an anomaly. Election data from 2008 to 2020 shows November elections have consistently lower rejection rates than other elections, due primarily to the higher number of in-person early voting (which is included in absentee tallies). And the November rejection rates themselves have steadily dropped in each election aside from 2016, when a new law caused a one-year spike. The November 2018 and 2020 rejections rates were in line with that long-term trend. We rate this claim False. | [
"106893-proof-43-e97b92cac6e9a544649d79edc86c6ddf.jpg"
]
|
An optional microchip for COVID-19 vaccines 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient. | Contradiction | A video circulating on social media wrongly claims that some COVID-19 vaccines could include microchips to let government officials track patients. That's inaccurate. The Dec. 9 video spread on Facebook and Instagram as the U.S. distributed its first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The video pulls from a May interview with Jay Walker, executive chairman of ApiJect Systems Corp., a medical technology company. In the interview, Walker described how ApiJect's prefilled syringes could include optional chips to show when a vaccine dose is expired or counterfeit. The video uses selective editing and misleading text overlays to give the impression that the ApiJect's radio-frequency identification technology would enable government officials to track the vaccinated population. 'The chip would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated, as well as when doses expire,' the text over the video says. 'The chip tracks the location of the patient.' A pair of screenshots from a social media video falsely claiming some COVID-19 vaccines could include microchips to track patients. But in reality, the optional chip would be on the syringe label, spokespersons for ApiJect and the Department of Health and Human Services told PolitiFact. It would not be injected into patients with the vaccine, nor would it allow those patients to be tracked in any way. Fact-checkers from Reuters and Lead Stories previously debunked the video's claims. Elizabeth Johnston, who describes herself as a blogger, author and activist, posted the video with a watermark from her website. We reached out to her, but she did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Patients won't be tracked or have chip injected with vaccine In his May interview with CBN News, Walker described ApiJect's partnership with the U.S. government to expand production of injection devices for a future COVID-19 vaccine. The company had recently entered into a $138 million contract with the Pentagon and HHS. (In the interview, Walker is misidentified as ApiJect's CEO.) The interviewer asked Walker about 'the optional RFID chip' on the prefilled syringes that could help health workers tell if a vaccine dose was expired or counterfeit. 'What that chip does is it has the unique serial number for each dose,' Walker said. 'It is designed so that there is no counterfeiting. It is designed so that we'll know exactly that the right dose hasn't expired.' Walker went on to explain that the chip 'only refers to the dose' of the vaccine in the prefilled syringe. 'There's no personal information, no patient information,' he said. 'It's simply like a barcode. Only we know instantaneously where and when that dose has been used.' But the video circulating on social media omits that section of the interview. It mutes Walker's words and, in a text overlay on the screen, says the chip 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient.' Steven Hofman, a spokesperson for ApiJect, rejected the video's claims. 'No chip is vaccinated into anyone,' he said in an email to PolitiFact. The technology is optional for purchasers of the syringes and 'would go on the label on the outside of the container holding the vaccine,' Hofman said. So far, it hasn't been requested by any government or private company, he said. And if it were, it wouldn't be able to track people. 'The chip does not and will not collect any personal information on who is vaccinated,' Hofman said. The chips could record where each shot was administered, but they 'would not and could not record information on who has been vaccinated.' The chips could also help keep tabs on the devices as they ship to pharmacies and other locations for vaccine administration, an HHS spokesperson said in a statement. 'The video is inaccurate,' the statement said. 'ApiJect technology doesn't inject a microchip into a person receiving the vaccine.' PolitiFact has debunked numerous false claims about tracking devices in vaccines. Experts previously said microchips are too large to be injected when patients are vaccinated. 'Even the smallest version of RFID chips are rather large, such that none would ever fit into a vaccine needle,' Dr. Wilbur Chen, an infectious-disease scientist at the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, told PolitiFact in April. | Our ruling A Facebook video said an optional microchip for COVID-19 vaccines 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient.' The chips are part of the label for ApiJect's prefilled syringes, and they help identify the vaccine doses, not patients. They would not be injected into patients seeking the vaccine, nor would they be used to track information and locations. We rate this Facebook post False. | [
"106896-proof-08-f6ccb9900f723bc7ea7edfaeacc0f340.jpg"
]
|
An optional microchip for COVID-19 vaccines 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient. | Contradiction | A video circulating on social media wrongly claims that some COVID-19 vaccines could include microchips to let government officials track patients. That's inaccurate. The Dec. 9 video spread on Facebook and Instagram as the U.S. distributed its first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The video pulls from a May interview with Jay Walker, executive chairman of ApiJect Systems Corp., a medical technology company. In the interview, Walker described how ApiJect's prefilled syringes could include optional chips to show when a vaccine dose is expired or counterfeit. The video uses selective editing and misleading text overlays to give the impression that the ApiJect's radio-frequency identification technology would enable government officials to track the vaccinated population. 'The chip would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated, as well as when doses expire,' the text over the video says. 'The chip tracks the location of the patient.' A pair of screenshots from a social media video falsely claiming some COVID-19 vaccines could include microchips to track patients. But in reality, the optional chip would be on the syringe label, spokespersons for ApiJect and the Department of Health and Human Services told PolitiFact. It would not be injected into patients with the vaccine, nor would it allow those patients to be tracked in any way. Fact-checkers from Reuters and Lead Stories previously debunked the video's claims. Elizabeth Johnston, who describes herself as a blogger, author and activist, posted the video with a watermark from her website. We reached out to her, but she did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Patients won't be tracked or have chip injected with vaccine In his May interview with CBN News, Walker described ApiJect's partnership with the U.S. government to expand production of injection devices for a future COVID-19 vaccine. The company had recently entered into a $138 million contract with the Pentagon and HHS. (In the interview, Walker is misidentified as ApiJect's CEO.) The interviewer asked Walker about 'the optional RFID chip' on the prefilled syringes that could help health workers tell if a vaccine dose was expired or counterfeit. 'What that chip does is it has the unique serial number for each dose,' Walker said. 'It is designed so that there is no counterfeiting. It is designed so that we'll know exactly that the right dose hasn't expired.' Walker went on to explain that the chip 'only refers to the dose' of the vaccine in the prefilled syringe. 'There's no personal information, no patient information,' he said. 'It's simply like a barcode. Only we know instantaneously where and when that dose has been used.' But the video circulating on social media omits that section of the interview. It mutes Walker's words and, in a text overlay on the screen, says the chip 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient.' Steven Hofman, a spokesperson for ApiJect, rejected the video's claims. 'No chip is vaccinated into anyone,' he said in an email to PolitiFact. The technology is optional for purchasers of the syringes and 'would go on the label on the outside of the container holding the vaccine,' Hofman said. So far, it hasn't been requested by any government or private company, he said. And if it were, it wouldn't be able to track people. 'The chip does not and will not collect any personal information on who is vaccinated,' Hofman said. The chips could record where each shot was administered, but they 'would not and could not record information on who has been vaccinated.' The chips could also help keep tabs on the devices as they ship to pharmacies and other locations for vaccine administration, an HHS spokesperson said in a statement. 'The video is inaccurate,' the statement said. 'ApiJect technology doesn't inject a microchip into a person receiving the vaccine.' PolitiFact has debunked numerous false claims about tracking devices in vaccines. Experts previously said microchips are too large to be injected when patients are vaccinated. 'Even the smallest version of RFID chips are rather large, such that none would ever fit into a vaccine needle,' Dr. Wilbur Chen, an infectious-disease scientist at the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, told PolitiFact in April. | Our ruling A Facebook video said an optional microchip for COVID-19 vaccines 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient.' The chips are part of the label for ApiJect's prefilled syringes, and they help identify the vaccine doses, not patients. They would not be injected into patients seeking the vaccine, nor would they be used to track information and locations. We rate this Facebook post False. | [
"106896-proof-08-f6ccb9900f723bc7ea7edfaeacc0f340.jpg"
]
|
An optional microchip for COVID-19 vaccines 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient. | Contradiction | A video circulating on social media wrongly claims that some COVID-19 vaccines could include microchips to let government officials track patients. That's inaccurate. The Dec. 9 video spread on Facebook and Instagram as the U.S. distributed its first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The video pulls from a May interview with Jay Walker, executive chairman of ApiJect Systems Corp., a medical technology company. In the interview, Walker described how ApiJect's prefilled syringes could include optional chips to show when a vaccine dose is expired or counterfeit. The video uses selective editing and misleading text overlays to give the impression that the ApiJect's radio-frequency identification technology would enable government officials to track the vaccinated population. 'The chip would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated, as well as when doses expire,' the text over the video says. 'The chip tracks the location of the patient.' A pair of screenshots from a social media video falsely claiming some COVID-19 vaccines could include microchips to track patients. But in reality, the optional chip would be on the syringe label, spokespersons for ApiJect and the Department of Health and Human Services told PolitiFact. It would not be injected into patients with the vaccine, nor would it allow those patients to be tracked in any way. Fact-checkers from Reuters and Lead Stories previously debunked the video's claims. Elizabeth Johnston, who describes herself as a blogger, author and activist, posted the video with a watermark from her website. We reached out to her, but she did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Patients won't be tracked or have chip injected with vaccine In his May interview with CBN News, Walker described ApiJect's partnership with the U.S. government to expand production of injection devices for a future COVID-19 vaccine. The company had recently entered into a $138 million contract with the Pentagon and HHS. (In the interview, Walker is misidentified as ApiJect's CEO.) The interviewer asked Walker about 'the optional RFID chip' on the prefilled syringes that could help health workers tell if a vaccine dose was expired or counterfeit. 'What that chip does is it has the unique serial number for each dose,' Walker said. 'It is designed so that there is no counterfeiting. It is designed so that we'll know exactly that the right dose hasn't expired.' Walker went on to explain that the chip 'only refers to the dose' of the vaccine in the prefilled syringe. 'There's no personal information, no patient information,' he said. 'It's simply like a barcode. Only we know instantaneously where and when that dose has been used.' But the video circulating on social media omits that section of the interview. It mutes Walker's words and, in a text overlay on the screen, says the chip 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient.' Steven Hofman, a spokesperson for ApiJect, rejected the video's claims. 'No chip is vaccinated into anyone,' he said in an email to PolitiFact. The technology is optional for purchasers of the syringes and 'would go on the label on the outside of the container holding the vaccine,' Hofman said. So far, it hasn't been requested by any government or private company, he said. And if it were, it wouldn't be able to track people. 'The chip does not and will not collect any personal information on who is vaccinated,' Hofman said. The chips could record where each shot was administered, but they 'would not and could not record information on who has been vaccinated.' The chips could also help keep tabs on the devices as they ship to pharmacies and other locations for vaccine administration, an HHS spokesperson said in a statement. 'The video is inaccurate,' the statement said. 'ApiJect technology doesn't inject a microchip into a person receiving the vaccine.' PolitiFact has debunked numerous false claims about tracking devices in vaccines. Experts previously said microchips are too large to be injected when patients are vaccinated. 'Even the smallest version of RFID chips are rather large, such that none would ever fit into a vaccine needle,' Dr. Wilbur Chen, an infectious-disease scientist at the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, told PolitiFact in April. | Our ruling A Facebook video said an optional microchip for COVID-19 vaccines 'would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated' and 'tracks the location of the patient.' The chips are part of the label for ApiJect's prefilled syringes, and they help identify the vaccine doses, not patients. They would not be injected into patients seeking the vaccine, nor would they be used to track information and locations. We rate this Facebook post False. | [
"106896-proof-08-f6ccb9900f723bc7ea7edfaeacc0f340.jpg"
]
|
'Parents who challenge school curriculums are domestic terrorist(s). | Contradiction | Concerns about the safety of public school employees and school board members prompted the National School Boards Association to request federal assistance. In response, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI to work with state and local officials to address threats. The memo has generated misinformation online - with some parents claiming they're being unfairly targeted for voicing their opinion. 'Parents who challenge school curriculums are domestic terrorist(s),' reads the image of one Oct. 13 Instagram post by Grant Cardone, an entrepreneur and speaker. In a caption, Cardone wrote: 'Apparently I have a new title; 'domestic terrorist' and I'll accept it (if) that means I'm standing up for my Kids. Parents will no longer be able to exercise free speech, opinions or controls over what your kids are taught at school. I've been telling you for years, the school system was broken.' He went on to say he was choosing to homeschool his children. 'Call me a terrorist if you want but I'll fight for my kids.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Facebook owns Instagram. Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Have parents who contest school curriculums been labeled 'domestic terrorists' or barred from challenging school curriculums? No. Garland's Oct. 4 memo ordered the FBI to work with state and local officials to brainstorm ways to address 'threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,' and to establish procedures for threat 'reporting, assessment and response.' In a statement, the Justice Department clarified that the overall effort was 'designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.' The word 'terrorist' did not appear in either the memo or the Justice Department statement. In addition, Garland clearly indicated that parents can challenge school curriculums or voice opinions that differ from that of their local school officials. 'While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,' reads the memo. Parents in some school districts have directed their hostility at school board members - most often due to the issue of masking in schools. In August, a school board in Tennessee voted in favor of students wearing masks in class, which prompted a large group of parents to gather in protest. Some shouted things like 'we can find you, and we know who you are,' as a board member walked to their car. In Virginia, the police 'have investigated threats to shoot Virginia Beach School Board members,' the Virginian-Pilot reported. Masks were at the heart of that incident as well: The threats emerged after social media users discovered members of the board were not wearing masks - which were required in 'instructional settings' at the time - at a gathering. So the memo about school board meetings did not mention domestic terrorism. Where could that be coming from? The claims appear to be linked to a bulletin from the National Terrorism Advisory System, which warned of a 'current heightened threat environment' in the U.S. The bulletin from Aug. 13 mentioned several factors at work, including the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and threats from foreign and domestic terrorists. 'These actors are increasingly exploiting online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity,' reads the bulletin. 'Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.' Although the bulletin made reference to ongoing frustration some have expressed about pandemic safety restrictions, experts say it did not designate anyone a domestic terrorist. The U.S. departments of State and Treasury have the authority to designate groups as terrorists; the National Terrorism Advisory System does not. | Our ruling An Instagram post claimed that 'parents who challenge school curriculums' were labeled 'domestic terrorists.' The FBI was ordered to work to address criminal threats against school officials and staff. Garland's memo underscored that 'spirited debate' is protected by the Constitution. A bulletin about the level of threat environment in the U.S. fueled some claims that those who oppose coronavirus safety restrictions were labeled domestic terrorists, but that is not the case. We rate this claim False. | []
|
'Parents who challenge school curriculums are domestic terrorist(s). | Contradiction | Concerns about the safety of public school employees and school board members prompted the National School Boards Association to request federal assistance. In response, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI to work with state and local officials to address threats. The memo has generated misinformation online - with some parents claiming they're being unfairly targeted for voicing their opinion. 'Parents who challenge school curriculums are domestic terrorist(s),' reads the image of one Oct. 13 Instagram post by Grant Cardone, an entrepreneur and speaker. In a caption, Cardone wrote: 'Apparently I have a new title; 'domestic terrorist' and I'll accept it (if) that means I'm standing up for my Kids. Parents will no longer be able to exercise free speech, opinions or controls over what your kids are taught at school. I've been telling you for years, the school system was broken.' He went on to say he was choosing to homeschool his children. 'Call me a terrorist if you want but I'll fight for my kids.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Facebook owns Instagram. Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Have parents who contest school curriculums been labeled 'domestic terrorists' or barred from challenging school curriculums? No. Garland's Oct. 4 memo ordered the FBI to work with state and local officials to brainstorm ways to address 'threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,' and to establish procedures for threat 'reporting, assessment and response.' In a statement, the Justice Department clarified that the overall effort was 'designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.' The word 'terrorist' did not appear in either the memo or the Justice Department statement. In addition, Garland clearly indicated that parents can challenge school curriculums or voice opinions that differ from that of their local school officials. 'While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,' reads the memo. Parents in some school districts have directed their hostility at school board members - most often due to the issue of masking in schools. In August, a school board in Tennessee voted in favor of students wearing masks in class, which prompted a large group of parents to gather in protest. Some shouted things like 'we can find you, and we know who you are,' as a board member walked to their car. In Virginia, the police 'have investigated threats to shoot Virginia Beach School Board members,' the Virginian-Pilot reported. Masks were at the heart of that incident as well: The threats emerged after social media users discovered members of the board were not wearing masks - which were required in 'instructional settings' at the time - at a gathering. So the memo about school board meetings did not mention domestic terrorism. Where could that be coming from? The claims appear to be linked to a bulletin from the National Terrorism Advisory System, which warned of a 'current heightened threat environment' in the U.S. The bulletin from Aug. 13 mentioned several factors at work, including the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and threats from foreign and domestic terrorists. 'These actors are increasingly exploiting online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity,' reads the bulletin. 'Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.' Although the bulletin made reference to ongoing frustration some have expressed about pandemic safety restrictions, experts say it did not designate anyone a domestic terrorist. The U.S. departments of State and Treasury have the authority to designate groups as terrorists; the National Terrorism Advisory System does not. | Our ruling An Instagram post claimed that 'parents who challenge school curriculums' were labeled 'domestic terrorists.' The FBI was ordered to work to address criminal threats against school officials and staff. Garland's memo underscored that 'spirited debate' is protected by the Constitution. A bulletin about the level of threat environment in the U.S. fueled some claims that those who oppose coronavirus safety restrictions were labeled domestic terrorists, but that is not the case. We rate this claim False. | []
|
'Parents who challenge school curriculums are domestic terrorist(s). | Contradiction | Concerns about the safety of public school employees and school board members prompted the National School Boards Association to request federal assistance. In response, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI to work with state and local officials to address threats. The memo has generated misinformation online - with some parents claiming they're being unfairly targeted for voicing their opinion. 'Parents who challenge school curriculums are domestic terrorist(s),' reads the image of one Oct. 13 Instagram post by Grant Cardone, an entrepreneur and speaker. In a caption, Cardone wrote: 'Apparently I have a new title; 'domestic terrorist' and I'll accept it (if) that means I'm standing up for my Kids. Parents will no longer be able to exercise free speech, opinions or controls over what your kids are taught at school. I've been telling you for years, the school system was broken.' He went on to say he was choosing to homeschool his children. 'Call me a terrorist if you want but I'll fight for my kids.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Facebook owns Instagram. Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Have parents who contest school curriculums been labeled 'domestic terrorists' or barred from challenging school curriculums? No. Garland's Oct. 4 memo ordered the FBI to work with state and local officials to brainstorm ways to address 'threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,' and to establish procedures for threat 'reporting, assessment and response.' In a statement, the Justice Department clarified that the overall effort was 'designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.' The word 'terrorist' did not appear in either the memo or the Justice Department statement. In addition, Garland clearly indicated that parents can challenge school curriculums or voice opinions that differ from that of their local school officials. 'While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,' reads the memo. Parents in some school districts have directed their hostility at school board members - most often due to the issue of masking in schools. In August, a school board in Tennessee voted in favor of students wearing masks in class, which prompted a large group of parents to gather in protest. Some shouted things like 'we can find you, and we know who you are,' as a board member walked to their car. In Virginia, the police 'have investigated threats to shoot Virginia Beach School Board members,' the Virginian-Pilot reported. Masks were at the heart of that incident as well: The threats emerged after social media users discovered members of the board were not wearing masks - which were required in 'instructional settings' at the time - at a gathering. So the memo about school board meetings did not mention domestic terrorism. Where could that be coming from? The claims appear to be linked to a bulletin from the National Terrorism Advisory System, which warned of a 'current heightened threat environment' in the U.S. The bulletin from Aug. 13 mentioned several factors at work, including the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and threats from foreign and domestic terrorists. 'These actors are increasingly exploiting online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity,' reads the bulletin. 'Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.' Although the bulletin made reference to ongoing frustration some have expressed about pandemic safety restrictions, experts say it did not designate anyone a domestic terrorist. The U.S. departments of State and Treasury have the authority to designate groups as terrorists; the National Terrorism Advisory System does not. | Our ruling An Instagram post claimed that 'parents who challenge school curriculums' were labeled 'domestic terrorists.' The FBI was ordered to work to address criminal threats against school officials and staff. Garland's memo underscored that 'spirited debate' is protected by the Constitution. A bulletin about the level of threat environment in the U.S. fueled some claims that those who oppose coronavirus safety restrictions were labeled domestic terrorists, but that is not the case. We rate this claim False. | []
|
'80% of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester. | Contradiction | A man who used a public meeting to make predictions of death and sterilization for people who have received COVID-19 vaccines also repeated an alarming claim about pregnancy risks. 'Eighty percent of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester,' the man declared at the Aug. 16 meeting of the Talawanda Board Board of Education in Oxford, Ohio, a college town 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati. The man, who identified himself as 'Sean Brooks, PhD,' did not cite any evidence to back his statement. A TikTok video of his comments was shared on Facebook. The Facebook post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The man's claim in the video repeats a claim that was widely shared on Instagram a month earlier, and which we rated False. The Instagram post was based on a flawed interpretation of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The post made a conclusion based on a small sample of completed pregnancies known by researchers. The majority of study participants were either still pregnant, or had not yet had follow-ups with the paper's authors. We sent an email to an address listed for Brooks, asking for information to back his statement. The reply cited the study. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: 'There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 vaccination causes any problems with pregnancy, including the development of the placenta. In addition, there is no evidence that female or male fertility problems are a side effect of any vaccine, including COVID-19 vaccines.' The CDC recommends the vaccines for people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future, saying: 'Pregnant and recently pregnant people are more likely to get severely ill with COVID-19 compared with non-pregnant people.' The CDC announced Aug. 11 that its analysis of data from the agency's V-safe pregnancy registry did not find an increased risk of miscarriage among nearly 2,500 pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Miscarriage typically occurs in about 11% to 16% of pregnancies, and the study found miscarriage rates after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were around 13%. The registry collects health information from volunteers who received COVID-19 vaccines within 30 days before their last menstrual period or during pregnancy. | Our ruling A video of a public meeting shows a man claiming that '80% of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester.' The claim is based on an erroneous interpretation of a research study. Federal researchers have found no increased risk of miscarriage from receiving the COVID-19 vaccines. We rate the claim False. | [
"106924-proof-17-29a7a65411e4bf4dfd40675df3d70765.jpg"
]
|
'80% of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester. | Contradiction | A man who used a public meeting to make predictions of death and sterilization for people who have received COVID-19 vaccines also repeated an alarming claim about pregnancy risks. 'Eighty percent of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester,' the man declared at the Aug. 16 meeting of the Talawanda Board Board of Education in Oxford, Ohio, a college town 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati. The man, who identified himself as 'Sean Brooks, PhD,' did not cite any evidence to back his statement. A TikTok video of his comments was shared on Facebook. The Facebook post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The man's claim in the video repeats a claim that was widely shared on Instagram a month earlier, and which we rated False. The Instagram post was based on a flawed interpretation of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The post made a conclusion based on a small sample of completed pregnancies known by researchers. The majority of study participants were either still pregnant, or had not yet had follow-ups with the paper's authors. We sent an email to an address listed for Brooks, asking for information to back his statement. The reply cited the study. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: 'There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 vaccination causes any problems with pregnancy, including the development of the placenta. In addition, there is no evidence that female or male fertility problems are a side effect of any vaccine, including COVID-19 vaccines.' The CDC recommends the vaccines for people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future, saying: 'Pregnant and recently pregnant people are more likely to get severely ill with COVID-19 compared with non-pregnant people.' The CDC announced Aug. 11 that its analysis of data from the agency's V-safe pregnancy registry did not find an increased risk of miscarriage among nearly 2,500 pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Miscarriage typically occurs in about 11% to 16% of pregnancies, and the study found miscarriage rates after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were around 13%. The registry collects health information from volunteers who received COVID-19 vaccines within 30 days before their last menstrual period or during pregnancy. | Our ruling A video of a public meeting shows a man claiming that '80% of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester.' The claim is based on an erroneous interpretation of a research study. Federal researchers have found no increased risk of miscarriage from receiving the COVID-19 vaccines. We rate the claim False. | [
"106924-proof-17-29a7a65411e4bf4dfd40675df3d70765.jpg"
]
|
'80% of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester. | Contradiction | A man who used a public meeting to make predictions of death and sterilization for people who have received COVID-19 vaccines also repeated an alarming claim about pregnancy risks. 'Eighty percent of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester,' the man declared at the Aug. 16 meeting of the Talawanda Board Board of Education in Oxford, Ohio, a college town 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati. The man, who identified himself as 'Sean Brooks, PhD,' did not cite any evidence to back his statement. A TikTok video of his comments was shared on Facebook. The Facebook post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The man's claim in the video repeats a claim that was widely shared on Instagram a month earlier, and which we rated False. The Instagram post was based on a flawed interpretation of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The post made a conclusion based on a small sample of completed pregnancies known by researchers. The majority of study participants were either still pregnant, or had not yet had follow-ups with the paper's authors. We sent an email to an address listed for Brooks, asking for information to back his statement. The reply cited the study. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: 'There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 vaccination causes any problems with pregnancy, including the development of the placenta. In addition, there is no evidence that female or male fertility problems are a side effect of any vaccine, including COVID-19 vaccines.' The CDC recommends the vaccines for people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future, saying: 'Pregnant and recently pregnant people are more likely to get severely ill with COVID-19 compared with non-pregnant people.' The CDC announced Aug. 11 that its analysis of data from the agency's V-safe pregnancy registry did not find an increased risk of miscarriage among nearly 2,500 pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Miscarriage typically occurs in about 11% to 16% of pregnancies, and the study found miscarriage rates after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were around 13%. The registry collects health information from volunteers who received COVID-19 vaccines within 30 days before their last menstrual period or during pregnancy. | Our ruling A video of a public meeting shows a man claiming that '80% of women who have been jabbed have lost their children in the first trimester.' The claim is based on an erroneous interpretation of a research study. Federal researchers have found no increased risk of miscarriage from receiving the COVID-19 vaccines. We rate the claim False. | [
"106924-proof-17-29a7a65411e4bf4dfd40675df3d70765.jpg"
]
|
Says 'Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nominated and confirmed 43 days before an election. | Contradiction | The recent death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaves a critical vacancy on the country's highest court. With the Nov. 3 presidential election so close, Democrats are insisting that the next justice be nominated by the victorious candidate. Many Republicans, on the other hand, say President Donald Trump should pick Ginsburg's successor immediately. The debate is a replay of a fight that took place in 2016, when a seat came vacant during President Barack Obama's last year in office. Invoking another period in history, a Facebook post claims that Ginsburg herself was nominated and confirmed to the court a little over a month before an election. 'Fun Fact,' the post says. 'RBG was nominated and confirmed 43 days before an election.' This is inaccurate. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It took 42 days for Ginsburg to be confirmed once her nomination was submitted to the Senate. But those were not the 42 (or 43) days 'before an election.' Ginsburg's nomination and confirmation happened the year after the national election. The process began about eight months after President Bill Clinton won his first presidential election. Clinton announced Ginsburg as his Supreme Court nominee on June 15, 1993, to fill the seat vacated by retiring Justice Byron White. The Senate received the nomination on June 22, and on Aug. 3, 1993 confirmed Ginsburg as an associate justice on the court with a vote of 96-3. That was 42 days after the Senate received the nomination. We rate this post False. This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more | We rate this post False. This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more | [
"106933-proof-17-5d773142d61a5bb03e7f98325979c0c5.jpg"
]
|
Says 'Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nominated and confirmed 43 days before an election. | Contradiction | The recent death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaves a critical vacancy on the country's highest court. With the Nov. 3 presidential election so close, Democrats are insisting that the next justice be nominated by the victorious candidate. Many Republicans, on the other hand, say President Donald Trump should pick Ginsburg's successor immediately. The debate is a replay of a fight that took place in 2016, when a seat came vacant during President Barack Obama's last year in office. Invoking another period in history, a Facebook post claims that Ginsburg herself was nominated and confirmed to the court a little over a month before an election. 'Fun Fact,' the post says. 'RBG was nominated and confirmed 43 days before an election.' This is inaccurate. The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It took 42 days for Ginsburg to be confirmed once her nomination was submitted to the Senate. But those were not the 42 (or 43) days 'before an election.' Ginsburg's nomination and confirmation happened the year after the national election. The process began about eight months after President Bill Clinton won his first presidential election. Clinton announced Ginsburg as his Supreme Court nominee on June 15, 1993, to fill the seat vacated by retiring Justice Byron White. The Senate received the nomination on June 22, and on Aug. 3, 1993 confirmed Ginsburg as an associate justice on the court with a vote of 96-3. That was 42 days after the Senate received the nomination. We rate this post False. This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more | We rate this post False. This fact check is available at IFCN's 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more | [
"106933-proof-17-5d773142d61a5bb03e7f98325979c0c5.jpg"
]
|
'Democrats are responsible for the massive spending and debt growth, they alone need to take responsibility for raising the debt limit. | Contradiction | The U.S. is again facing a reckoning on the size of the national debt, which is approaching its legal limit. Without an increase in the debt ceiling, the country will not be able to borrow money to cover its bills. That would affect Social Security recipients, veterans and the people, banks and foreign nations that hold U.S. Treasury bonds. Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott said it should be up to Democrats to solve this problem on their own. 'We won't vote to bail them out and cut them more blank checks to bury us in debt,' Scott wrote Sept. 23 in the Orlando Sentinel. 'Democrats are responsible for the massive spending and debt growth, they alone need to take responsibility for raising the debt limit.' Are Democrats alone responsible for the growth in the debt? No. It has been a decades-long, bipartisan effort. Presidents, parties and debt The national debt is the accumulated total of all the money the government has borrowed over the decades to cover its deficits and fund its operations, but hasn't yet paid back. With a temporary suspension of the debt ceiling having expired on Aug. 1, the U.S. is now subject to a $28.4 trillion cap on its debt load, unless Congress finds a way to agree on a new increase or suspension. The day President Joe Biden took office, the national debt stood at $27.7 trillion. Eight months later, it is approaching that $28.4 trillion limit. But Scott's finger-pointing ignores how the debt got as big as it is. Thanks to spending for wars, crises and mandatory government programs, along with a series of tax cuts, the debt continued expanding throughout the post-World War II period, regardless of which party controlled the White House or Congress. In nominal dollars, since World War II, just over 60% of the growth in the debt took place under Republican presidents, and about 40% under Democratic presidents. Biden championed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act to help the country control and recover from the pandemic. Most of that spending takes place over two years, but it has already added to the running tally of the national debt. The bill passed without a single Republican vote. So that's on the Democrats. Now, the Democrats are seeking to pass a measure that could spend trillions more on infrastructure and social programs. How much it would ultimately contribute to the debt depends on the tax increases in the final package. But since none of it has been enacted yet, it hasn't added a penny to the debt. Scott didn't mention the recent Republican record on adding to the debt, so we looked it up. What we found is that from the day President Donald Trump took office to his last day, the national debt grew $7.8 trillion. About half of that - $3.6 trillion - came from dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. That spending was backed by both Republicans and Democrats. It included the $2.1 trillion CARES Act, and another dose of relief of about $950 billion in late December 2020. Democrats and Republicans also approved spending bills that increased defense and social program spending. But a good chunk of the debt increase came from initiatives backed solely by Trump and the then-GOP-controlled Congress. The 2017 Republican Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which slashed personal and corporate taxes, was supposed to spur enough economic growth to make up for lower tax rates. But after two years - even before the pandemic pummeled the economy - government revenues were down by about half a trillion dollars from what they would have been without the tax cuts. Not a single Democratic voted for that law, and among Republicans, only a dozen House members voted against it. All told, before the pandemic struck, the debt had increased $3.3 trillion on Trump's watch. To be sure, no president has been totally responsible for the debt that accumulated during his administration. Congress writes the spending and tax bills that a president signs, and control of Congress has shifted back and forth between the parties for the past three decades. Plus, each president's debt record reflects laws and spending plans passed before he took office. Major commitments, such as Social Security payments, shape the country's fiscal picture regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that promotes deficit reduction, said both parties own the current debt. 'It has been produced by Democrats and Republicans, on both a partisan and bipartisan basis,' Goldwein said. We reached out to Scott's office and didn't hear back. | Our ruling Scott said that 'Democrats are responsible for the massive spending and debt growth.' The bottom line is both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for growth of the national debt. The debt grew by $7.8 trillion during the Trump years, in part because of bipartisan votes on COVID-19 relief and other spending, but also because of measures like the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which was backed only by Republicans. We rate this claim Mostly False. | [
"106938-proof-30-411cb41929e4b2b12112ade07333c621.jpg"
]
|
'Democrats are responsible for the massive spending and debt growth, they alone need to take responsibility for raising the debt limit. | Contradiction | The U.S. is again facing a reckoning on the size of the national debt, which is approaching its legal limit. Without an increase in the debt ceiling, the country will not be able to borrow money to cover its bills. That would affect Social Security recipients, veterans and the people, banks and foreign nations that hold U.S. Treasury bonds. Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott said it should be up to Democrats to solve this problem on their own. 'We won't vote to bail them out and cut them more blank checks to bury us in debt,' Scott wrote Sept. 23 in the Orlando Sentinel. 'Democrats are responsible for the massive spending and debt growth, they alone need to take responsibility for raising the debt limit.' Are Democrats alone responsible for the growth in the debt? No. It has been a decades-long, bipartisan effort. Presidents, parties and debt The national debt is the accumulated total of all the money the government has borrowed over the decades to cover its deficits and fund its operations, but hasn't yet paid back. With a temporary suspension of the debt ceiling having expired on Aug. 1, the U.S. is now subject to a $28.4 trillion cap on its debt load, unless Congress finds a way to agree on a new increase or suspension. The day President Joe Biden took office, the national debt stood at $27.7 trillion. Eight months later, it is approaching that $28.4 trillion limit. But Scott's finger-pointing ignores how the debt got as big as it is. Thanks to spending for wars, crises and mandatory government programs, along with a series of tax cuts, the debt continued expanding throughout the post-World War II period, regardless of which party controlled the White House or Congress. In nominal dollars, since World War II, just over 60% of the growth in the debt took place under Republican presidents, and about 40% under Democratic presidents. Biden championed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act to help the country control and recover from the pandemic. Most of that spending takes place over two years, but it has already added to the running tally of the national debt. The bill passed without a single Republican vote. So that's on the Democrats. Now, the Democrats are seeking to pass a measure that could spend trillions more on infrastructure and social programs. How much it would ultimately contribute to the debt depends on the tax increases in the final package. But since none of it has been enacted yet, it hasn't added a penny to the debt. Scott didn't mention the recent Republican record on adding to the debt, so we looked it up. What we found is that from the day President Donald Trump took office to his last day, the national debt grew $7.8 trillion. About half of that - $3.6 trillion - came from dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. That spending was backed by both Republicans and Democrats. It included the $2.1 trillion CARES Act, and another dose of relief of about $950 billion in late December 2020. Democrats and Republicans also approved spending bills that increased defense and social program spending. But a good chunk of the debt increase came from initiatives backed solely by Trump and the then-GOP-controlled Congress. The 2017 Republican Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which slashed personal and corporate taxes, was supposed to spur enough economic growth to make up for lower tax rates. But after two years - even before the pandemic pummeled the economy - government revenues were down by about half a trillion dollars from what they would have been without the tax cuts. Not a single Democratic voted for that law, and among Republicans, only a dozen House members voted against it. All told, before the pandemic struck, the debt had increased $3.3 trillion on Trump's watch. To be sure, no president has been totally responsible for the debt that accumulated during his administration. Congress writes the spending and tax bills that a president signs, and control of Congress has shifted back and forth between the parties for the past three decades. Plus, each president's debt record reflects laws and spending plans passed before he took office. Major commitments, such as Social Security payments, shape the country's fiscal picture regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that promotes deficit reduction, said both parties own the current debt. 'It has been produced by Democrats and Republicans, on both a partisan and bipartisan basis,' Goldwein said. We reached out to Scott's office and didn't hear back. | Our ruling Scott said that 'Democrats are responsible for the massive spending and debt growth.' The bottom line is both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for growth of the national debt. The debt grew by $7.8 trillion during the Trump years, in part because of bipartisan votes on COVID-19 relief and other spending, but also because of measures like the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which was backed only by Republicans. We rate this claim Mostly False. | [
"106938-proof-30-411cb41929e4b2b12112ade07333c621.jpg"
]
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.