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

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…

Does a video show a large group of Muslims chanting on the streets of Dublin in September 2026? No, that's not true: The video is from about a year earlier and shows a group of fans of the German professional football team FC Schalke 04 marching on Abbey Street in Dublin in October 2025. They were in town for a…

Does a video show the arrest of the man accused of inappropriately touching influencer Yoatzi Castro at Disneyland in 2026? No, that's not true: The footage used in the viral video was originally posted on Instagram in 2024. It does not show the man Castro accused of groping her at Disneyland in September 2026. The claim appeared in a video…

Did evangelist Franklin Graham and Pope Leo XIV have a live discussion on television? No, that's not true: There is no evidence of such a TV show. The claim is an example of so-called "Viet Spam" campaigns consisting of nearly identical, fabricated clickbait stories, each featuring a different famous person and created to drive traffic to overseas web pages, often…

Was Oprah Winfrey's private jet on Jeffrey Epstein's island 11 times? No, that's not true: There is no proof that Winfrey's private plane was ever on the Caribbean island of convicted sex offender Epstein. Little St. James is only 75 acres and does not have a runway for Winfrey's private plane, or any planes, to land there. The claim appeared…

Was the name of the U.S. actually misspelled in Donald Trump's "super intelligence" accord with tech executives as "Unites States"? Yes, that's true: President Trump shared two images of the "White House Accord on Super Intelligence" with the spelling error on his Truth Social account. Several media outlets also reported on the mistake, which happened shortly after the President signed…

Does a real video shot from the passenger window of a plane show the eye of Hurricane Polo? No, that's not true: This video was originally posted on Oct. 26, 2025, by an Instagram account that is labeled as an AI-generated profile. The video is also labeled as AI content on TikTok and the Hive Moderation tool determined it was…

Did Donald Trump admit in a speech, "I've done a shitty job as president"? No, that's not true: The president did say those words, but he was joking, and the quote was taken out of context. While announcing a new AI-powered government information hub, Trump was joking by saying "If it is the biggest thing I've ever done, I've done…

Does a real video show an airplane spinning wildly on a runway and hitting several other vehicles? No, that's not true: The video appeared on TikTok labeled as AI-generated content. Hive Moderation also determined the video was 73.1% likely to have been created with AI, and a visual analysis found workers appearing to be run over by the spinning plane…

Does a real video show 9-year-old Lily Trejo being beaten by Jake Lynch and another boy on Feb. 1 in Florida, with Lynch getting a "stern warning"? No, that's not true: The video combines cellphone footage of a real 2023 attack on a school bus in Homestead, Florida, with photos of an alleged victim and attacker from unrelated cases, while…

Have you seen posts on X that look like screenshots of New York Post headlines, which have a caption asking the xAI chatbot Grok to determine if the story is real or not? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such posts recently from an account @RabbiJeffx. The account bio is labelled 'parody & satire' and says they are a…

Will Kamala Harris be held personally responsible for her campaign's $39 million debt, according to a federal bankruptcy court? No, that's not true: The story originated from a network of self-described satire websites that place multiple disclaimers on their content saying that nothing they publish is real. Lead Stories did not find any matching reports from established media outlets. The…

Did a post mentioning Lebensraum for Israel appear on the Times of Israel blog platform? Yes, that's true: The screenshot that resurfaced on social media in 2026 showed a blog entry that was indeed published there almost two years earlier, but then was deleted. The Times of Israel, however, states that it does not assume responsibility for the content of…