Just Because It's Trending Doesn't Mean It's True — Fact checking at the speed of likes since 2015

Have you seen viral images showing small sleeping pods for homeless people? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such pictures and videos and has found that many of them were created using artificial intelligence. While there are some real projects aimed at providing unhoused populations with safe spaces for overnight stays by offering them such sleeping pods, the topic…

Did tech billionaire Jeff Bezos actually say that water should be prioritized for data centers over human consumption and 'Humans won't evolve humanity. AI will.'? No, that's not true: The claim originated from a self-described satire account whose profile picture mimicked the BBC logo. Lead Stories found no record of Bezos making such statements in any publicly available source. The…

Does an image show the price changes of specific items on two real Walmart shopping receipts from 2002 and 2026? No, that's not true: The receipts are not real and the images were AI-generated. The store address on the receipts does not exist -- there is no town called Sunset Bay in Florida and no Walmart at that location. The…

Does a real photo show the moment a woman wearing a "Release the Epstein files" shirt was punched by Trump supporters? No, that's not true: Two online tools concluded the image was created using AI. However, it closely resembles a real-life incident at an October 2026 Trump rally in Youngstown, Ohio, but the woman shown in news photos of that…

Does a real video show a woman shooting robbers from her car? No, that's not true: The clip appears to be a digital recreation of a June 2021 road rage incident in South Florida in which a man driving one car opened fire on another. The video and others like it digitally swap one person's likeness for another's, but the…

Did President Donald Trump accuse Ukraine of midterm election interference after Russian bot farm strikes? No, that's not true: The story originated on The Betoota Advocate, an Australian satirical news website. There is no evidence that Trump ever made such an accusation or issued a statement matching the claim, and no media coverage supports it. The claim appeared in an…

Did Donald Trump actually post a reply to 'Peter Girnus' who previously pretended to be a member of the Nobel Committee? No, that's not true: The screenshot displayed the wrong handle for Trump's Truth Social account -- @notRealDonaldTrump instead of @realDonaldTrump. Neither a search of his Truth Social account nor an archive of his posts showed any such reply. The…

Did President Donald Trump post a video montage showing real lion and tiger attacks on people to Truth Social? No, that's not true: He posted a montage of five clips, of which three were AI-generated, on Oct. 13, 2026. Of the remaining two clips in the montage, one shows a documented 2018 incident and the other, dating back to at…

Does a video show the man who fell to his death in Atlanta in October 2026 standing up on a Six Flags roller coaster? No, that's not true: The footage is from a November 2024 incident in Arizona where a man jumped off a roller coaster after realizing there was a problem with his harness. It does not show the…

Does a chart show real data of the drop-off in far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) bot activity since Ukraine bombed several Russian data centers? No, that's not true: This chart shows a prediction of the future, not a factual graph of what had already happened. The line graph, shared without sourcing on Oct. 11, 2026, shows a line going all…

Does a real photo show then-President George W. Bush, then-Vice President Dick Cheney, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Osama bin Laden sitting together? No, that's not true: The image is an edited version of a photo taken at the Pentagon on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the 9/11 attacks. Osama bin Laden was edited into the original photo,…

Was a post about how the Nobel Peace Prize committee rejected Trump's bid written by a Nobel committee member? No, that's not true: The author, Peter Girnus, is not listed among the five members of the 2026 Norwegian Nobel Committee. He is a social media content creator who describes himself as a "satirist." His posts typically use a boastful style,…

Did 'Task & Purpose' publish an article implying that 'Sarah Miller' was appointed the 'first executioner' in the Nidal Hasan's case? No, that's not true: Neither the outlet's website nor its social media accounts contained such a story. The soldier pictured in the fake screenshot is actually Sgt. Samantha Wendt, a canine handler whose photos appear on a U.S. government…

Is time-stamped surveillance camera footage from James Talarico's house real? No, that's not true: The image is AI-generated, according to analysis by online detection tools. One tool assessed the image as 99.9% "Likely to be AI-generated," while another indicated it was created using OpenAI tools. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @RheinAmacher account on X on…

Is there evidence Jared Kushner, a businessman, U.S. special envoy for peace and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, was one of the people who recently bought .si domain names? No, that's not true: there is no evidence that Kushner recently acquired any .si domain names, which use Slovenia's country-code top-level domain. Affinity Partners, Kushner's investment firm, told Lead Stories that "Jared…

Does a viral picture actually document a real-life event during which U.S. servicemembers shot "reptilians"? No, that's not true: Three online tools said that the image was AI-generated. Available government sources do not support the idea of such an encounter ever taking place. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published on Oct. 10,…

Did President Donald Trump's Truth Social account post a 503 "Service Unavailable" error referencing Yandex? No, that's not true: A review of Trump's Truth Social account found no record of the post, and no established news outlets reported that his account shared the error message at the time of publication. The fake post appeared to have originated from a political…

Did "The Simpsons" predict that President Donald Trump would take a picture with a glowing orb? No, that's not true: The image is from a short posted to the official Facebook account of "The Simpsons" after the real picture of Trump was taken. This "prediction" has been debunked since 2017. The claim was made in a post (archived here) by…

Do real photos show Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wearing a bunny costume or an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress? No, that's not true: Hive Moderation found all of the images highly likely to be AI-generated. Searches with Google Lens did not find any copies of these images originating from a verified source. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @cryptocyberia…

Did "South Park" tease an episode featuring Susan Dell and did she rage in response? No, that's not true: The image of Dell appearing with the characters from the TV show is AI-generated and was made by a digital creator. Neither the show nor Dell had posted any messages about such an episode at the time of writing. The claim…