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

Do videos actually show real U.S. military members saying 'God Bless America and God bless all of you"? No, that's not true: An online AI video detection tool flagged the video as 99.5% likely to be AI-generated. A separate analysis identified several hallmarks of AI-generated or digitally simulated content, including unusually smooth and consistent skin and lighting, mouth movements that…

Does a viral clip show the house fire that killed Iddo Netanyahu, brother of the Israeli prime minister? No, that's not true: That footage was uploaded online weeks before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. The clip reviewed in this fact check was recorded in New Jersey, not anywhere in the Middle East. As of publication,…

Did President Donald Trump post, "Mojtaba Khamenei are you ready to meet your father?" No, that's not true: The fake post did not come from the president's official Truth Social account. While Trump has called Mojtaba Khamenei -- Iran's new supreme leader and the son of the late longtime leader Ali Khamenei -- a "lightweight" and "unacceptable," he has not…

Did an Army prankster insert a photo of Jeffrey Epstein captioned "WHY WE FIGHT" into a "Manual for Warfighters" published by Pete Hegseth? No, that's not true: That story came from a satirical account on X that posts comedy content. There were no news reports about any such prank involving 100,000 printed copies for "soldiers training to invade Iran". The…

Did a video supposedly showing Iranians pumping air into an inflatable building to trick Americans into wasting ammunition originate from a serious news source? No, that's not true: The video, which had several glitches typical of AI-generated content, was published by an account that labels itself parody. In the first few frames the building appears to be deflating instead of…

Did Kevin Costner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jared Goff or any celebrities donate millions of dollars to support the funeral arrangements for four of the six U.S. servicemembers killed in a drone strike in Kuwait? No, that's not true: The false claim that at least 37 sports and entertainment celebs made such donations was created and distributed by a spam factory…

Did Barron Trump buy $30 million in oil two days before the war in Iran started? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that Barron made such a purchase two days before President Donald Trump launched the U.S. attack on Iran. No credible news outlets have reported that the president's youngest son bought oil, and no sources were cited…

Does a real video show a young boy crying out for his daddy when he saw the flag-draped casket on the tarmac? No, that's not true: This video is AI-generated. It originated from a Facebook page which has posted reels of exclusively AI-generated videos showing highly emotional scenes. The videos published by the page are posted in groups of three,…

Did Dennis Rodman fly to Tehran to negotiate peace, and did Iran agree to a meeting? No, that's not true: An online AI image detection tool rated the image as 100% likely to be AI-generated, and a separate analysis detected a SynthID watermark indicating it was created or modified by Google's AI models. The information originated on a Facebook page…

Does a video show a real American B-2 bomber after being shot down and being paraded through the streets in Iran? No, that's not true: An online AI images detection tool flagged the video as 100% likely to be AI-generated. A separate analysis found several hallmarks of AI-generated or digitally simulated content, including an aircraft whose scale does not match…

Does a post about Mark Zuckerberg's supposed subpoena accurately reflect recent reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein front company, Butterfly Foundation, named in the Tehran files? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no news articles about the supposed subpoena or mentioning the statement "Mr. Zuckerberg will cooperate fully" the post said his lawyers released. The "Butterfly Foundation" is not named…

Do the Epstein files reveal that "cannibal" Ellen DeGeneres ate Anne Heche after murdering her? No, that's not true: The only mention of Heche in the Department of Justice (DOJ) Epstein files is from a newspaper headline in the sidebar of another article. There is nothing in the Epstein files suggesting DeGeneres murdered Heche or cannibalized her body. Heche died…

Does a video show a real fire on board a U.S. destroyer or aircraft carrier? No, that's not true: An online AI image detection tool rated the image as 100% likely to be AI-generated. A separate analysis found it has several hallmarks of AI-generated or digitally simulated content, such as unusually uniform smoke and fire, distorted aircraft shapes, unrealistic water-heat…

Does a video show an American destroyer that was damaged by Iranian missiles in Cypriot territory in the Mediterranean? No, that's not true: This footage is from 2017 and the damage pictured is not from a missile attack. The video clip shows the USS Fitzgerald, which was damaged when it collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan.…

Does a photo show "Halach Boome," a real pilot from the Israeli Air Force who took out Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? No, that's not true: An online detection tool rated the image as 100% likely to be AI-generated, and it contains a watermark from an AI image generator. The creator of the image later posted he "memed" the…

Is a video of Donald Trump with blindfolded children that claims to have come "out of the Epstein files" real? No, that's not true: There is no record of an image or video showing President Trump with blindfolded children with Jeffrey Epstein. The video is a mashup of footage of Trump and Epstein and children that appears to be AI-generated.…

Does a real video show Iranian rockets coming in at a tremendous speed, exploding targets near the Tel Aviv marina? No, that's not true: This video is fake and bears many of the hallmarks of AI-generated imagery. The video is represented as showing Tel Aviv, Israel, but the marina does not look like the waterfront of that city. There is…

Does a video actually show the moment "when Iran destroyed the US Navy fleet in Bahrain"? No, that's not true: The viral clip, which purported to show that, originated from an account that disclosed it was AI-generated. It also contained glitches typical of AI-generated video. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on March 4, 2026.…

Does a photo show damage to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the American ship was damaged during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. The image actually shows repair crews in 1967 working to fix the damaged deck of the USS Forrestal after a deadly fire in the Gulf…

Does a video show a nuclear test carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran? No, that's not true: The video clip shows a nuclear test in the Nevada desert in 1957. The mislabeled video clip bears the watermark of the YouTube channel @atomcentral who posted the old footage of the atomic test in 2023. The mislabeled…