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

Does a real video show a bus driver named Linda Thompson or Derek Harris being hit by a rock thrown by children? No, that's not true: The names were inserted into template-based stories where the details are essentially the same except for the bus driver's name. There is no evidence that people by those names were involved in such incidents,…

Is a video that shows gymnasts forming a human pyramid in 10 seconds real? No, that's not true: The video carries an "AI content" label in certain areas of the world due to automated labeling rules and transparency displays. While the human pyramid in the video takes 10 seconds to build, the Guinness World Record for the tallest human pyramid…

Does a real video show an officer helping to free a baby bear stuck in a concrete highway median when the mother bear failed? No, that's not true: The video is AI-generated. The OpenAI Verify tool found a SynthID watermark indicating that the video was made with OpenAI tools. The video appeared in a post (archived here) by the @0ivankaTrump1…

Did E! News publish a report saying that Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought a residence from Norwegian royalty? No, that's not true: Such a story did not appear on that website. The viral rumor originated from a different website that was registered only two days before publishing the story. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by…

Does a video show Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama saying she thinks "America deserved 9/11"? No, that's not true: She was quoting Hasan Piker, a political commentator and Twitch streamer who campaigned with a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan. Her quote, at a political rally in Mobile, Alabama, on Oct. 2, 2026, attended by President Donald Trump, was meant to…

Does a viral image show Trump's aide Natalie Harp sitting next to the president in a car while wearing blue surgical gloves? No, that's not true: The real photo was digitally altered to add two hands wearing blue surgical gloves that do not appear in the original. The account that first posted the edited image said it was not meant…

Is a video that shows Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese collapsing and falling face first into the ground real? No, that's not true: Video published by an international news outlet did not show Albanese falling when he arrived in Fiji on Oct. 5, 2026. An AI detection tool determined the video was 98.8% likely to have been created with AI.…

Are receipts from Sam's Club in 1983 and 2026 that show a huge price increase over the years real? No, that's not true: There are several signs that the receipts are fake, including nonexistent addresses, an incorrect logo from 1983 and wrong price totals on the receipts. An online detection tool rated the image as 88% likely to be AI…

Does a photo circulating online show a signal jammer installed by police in Dover to block the livestreaming of anti-immigration protests? No, that's not true: The photo predates recent immigration protests by several years. Additionally, there is no evidence that signal jammers were installed at Dover before or during the early October 2026 protests. The claim appeared in a post…

Are the screenshots showing President Donald Trump confusing election results from Brazil and India in a post real? Yes, that's true: The president first shared a post noting the first round of India's presidential election, which he said took place on Oct. 4, 2026, but no such election took place on that date. Trump later corrected the post to mention…

Did President Donald Trump write "every Republican vote counts as 3 votes" because of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk? No, that's not true: A review of Trump's Truth Social account found no record of such a post, although one post contained a similarly worded message without the "3 votes" language. At the time of writing, no established news outlets…

Did 80,000 French students go missing in 72 hours amid protests, and were their mass graves spotted from space? No, none of that is true: The account that published the rumor later said that it was satire. No news outlet reported anything remotely close. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published by @IRAN_GHANA…

Have you seen viral videos showing dramatic encounters with whales at sea, frequently presented with a boat for scale? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such videos recently and has found that many of them were created using artificial intelligence. While there are many real whale watching videos of whales breaching or swimming beneath the surface, the popular topic…

Do two videos that show two different planes prove that the attempted hijacking of the FlyDubai flight Sept. 30, 2026, was a staged "false flag"? No, that's not true: The clip showing a celebration on a plane is of the Israeli men's basketball team from 2025, as Lead Stories previously reported. Nothing in the video proves that the FlyDubai flight…

Does a real video from NewsGuard show that the Democratic Party orchestrated an attempted terrorist attack on FlyDubai Flight FZ1073? No, that's not true: NewsGuard confirmed to Lead Stories that the organization did not make such a report, and there is no evidence that it ever did. Instead, NewsGuard said the post appears to be connected to a Russian disinformation…

Did a viral video show protests in Iran in the fall of 2026? No, that's not true: The video had been online for months before resurfacing in late September 2026. The earliest posts with the footage went live on social media on Dec. 31, 2025. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on Sept. 30, 2026,…

Does a real "leaked video" show an argument between FlyDubai pilots? No, that's not true: An AI detection tool assessed the clip and concluded that it was 95.8% "Likely to be AI-generated," while the audio came from a 2017 road-rage video. Lead Stories found no matching news reports about a leaked video involving FlyDubai pilots. The claim appeared in a…

Does a video show a FlyDubai plane plummeting after an incident on board a Tel Aviv flight in September 2026? No, that's not true: The clip shows an aircraft operated by Azul Brazilian Airlines, not FlyDubai. Separately, the video predates the Sept. 30, 2026, FlyDubai incident in which a co-pilot stabbed the pilot and attempted to crash the plane, so…

Does a video show passengers of FlyDubai flight FZ1073 to Tel Aviv celebrating on board with a big speaker after the hijacking attempt on Sept. 30, 2026? No, that's not true: The footage is from August 2025 and shows members of the Israeli men's basketball team on a plane. The original footage showing a man carrying a large speaker celebrating…

Does a real photo from 1965 show Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale gathered for a meal overlooking the sea in Malibu, California? No, that's not true: This image originated from a Facebook account specializing in AI-generated nostalgic scenes of celebrities from years ago. The OpenAI Verify tool found a SynthID watermark in the image…