Did Congressman Randy Fine write on social media that "the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one"? Yes, that's true: These words appeared on his official account on X. That account is linked to his congressional page. The statement appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on Feb. 15, 2026. It read: If they force…

Did CNN report that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who "un-alived" Minnesota nurse Alex Pretti and claimed "self-defense" was found "not-guilty"? No, that's not true: A search across the network's website did not show any CNN story saying that happened. Talking to Lead Stories, CNN's spokesperson said that the claim is false. As of this writing, none of the…

Does a video show a real incident in which an airport ground crew tried to retrieve a piece of metal being sucked into a jet engine? No, that's not true: This video is fake. Along with the unrealistically risky behavior of the ground crew, there are several glitches which point to the video having been AI-generated. The piece of metal…

Is a DJ Vlad 'confession' that Roc Nation bribed the judge, jury, witnesses, and police to convict Tory Lanez for shooting Megan Thee Stallion real? No, that's not true: While it was posted by DJ Vlad's X account, it concluded with a sentence calling the claims "these lies." DJ Vlad, a hip hop producer turned journalist, posted replies on this…

Did various celebrities, including Adam Sandler, Jeanine Pirro and Vince Gill unveil or introduce a "new bill" that would block George Soros from bankrolling protests by classifying such funding as "organized crime under the RICO Act"? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. There…

Was President Trump originally mentioned in the claim that 4,725 wire transfers totalling $1.1 billion were made to Jeffrey Epstein using Russian banks? No, that's not true: This appears to be based on a mangled version of a statement made by Senator Ron Wyden about various transfers flowing in and out of Epstein's account. The Congressional Record shows that when…

Did a dozen celebrities including Rob Schneider, Jerry Seinfeld, Pete Buttigieg and Pete Hegseth each launch "the first anti-woke morning show" on Fox, as Facebook posts claim? No, that's not true: Fox made no such announcement, nor did the celebrities whose names were pasted into identical fake stories about the claim, written with no apparent understanding of federal employment rules…

Does a viral video show real reactions of the people who watched Bad Bunny's 2026 Super Bowl halftime show in the stadium? No, that's not true: The clip was marked as containing AI generated media. The video showed characteristic, AI-associated glitches such as people with three arms and two hands. The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on…

Did Elon Musk reveal plans to buy CBS after Feb. 20? No, that's not true: The claim appeared on a Facebook page aimed at American and European audiences but produced in Vietnam. It is part of a clickbait operation that uses AI tools and is described by some fact-checkers as "Viet Spam." The article claims Musk made the announcement on…

Does a real photo from 2006 show Jeffrey Epstein posing by a pool with Bill and Hillary Clinton, Diddy, Bill Gates, Jay-Z, and Stephen Hawking? No, that's not true: The image was created with Google AI. It contains an invisible SynthID watermark which can be detected with the Google Gemini app. The fake image was posted (archived here) on Facebook…