fact check

Call it satire if you’d like, but it’s false information.

The dream lives on.

"I bless the fates it was not so." —Spartacus (War of the Damned).

It's hard to say.

Off by 82 grand and a few days.

The Secret Service trumps the NRA's Second Amendment predilection.

Yes, actually: A sensational headline, but accurate info.

A headline from the blogsite "David Harris Jr." claimed that "David Hogg [was] mocked for giving Nazi/Socialist salute to end march."

What better time to cover satirical news than in the immediate wake of April Fool's day?

During a televised hearing before the Homeland Security Committee last week on natural disasters in 2017, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama made a joke that thousands of people online perceived as a racist jab.

On his website, John Laurits (a self-identified communist based in Oregon) claimed that there is “no evidence” that Russia was involved in the poisoning of former Russian spy and double agent, Sergei Skripal.

Nowadays the term “fake news” is usually associated with politics, but it’s worth remembering that no field is immune to the spread of misinformation. And pop-science journalism is at least as prone to distortion as political coverage, especially when simplistic headlines are exaggerated on social…

In the “fake news” business nothing spreads misinformation quite as well as a ridiculous headline. They’re perfect for ginning up inquisitive clicks with the almost-money-back guarantee that the reader won’t get past the lede.

TWS Fact check is aware that there are few things less funny than explaining a joke, but fact checking one comes close.

The website POTUS WDC posted a false story with the bogus headline, “Catholic Archbishop Says Pedophilia Is ‘Spiritual Encounter With God.’”

“Seattle Police Begin Taking Citizens Guns Away, No Warrants or Charges,” a headline from the website Neon Nettle claimed early Wednesday. Multiple blog sites reported the same.

An article published by CNS News alleged that the Bernie Sanders campaign was fined $14,500 by the Federal Election Commission for “accepting illegal in-kind contributions during [the] 2016 campaign.” Facebook users questioned the article and flagged it for third-party fact checkers.

“Michelle Obama Just Received LIFE-SHATTERING News From The Doctor,” or so the website “nyfoxnews.co” (a domain extension widely used in Columbia) would have you believe.

Sometimes hoaxes work as a series, with bits of information being added one at a time and developed into a storyline. Fake news broke last summer that a Muslim judge had legalized two pieces of Sharia in Michigan. That was debunked at the time, with fact checkers pointing out that the “news” was…

The website “I Love My Freedom” published an article claiming that “millions RUSH to join the NRA after anti-gun lectures by the liberal media.”

Facebook users questioned the legitimacy of a story posted Monday by Infowars and Zero Hedge, which claimed 300 people had signed up for “gun training” after an Ohio sheriff offered free classes for 50 teachers.

“Russia Only Bought Facebook Ads After Trump Won The Election,” a headline from Milo Yiannopoulos’ site Dangerous.com claimed on Monday.

Claims of “crisis actors” in the wake of the deadly shooting in Florida sounded off across the internet’s conspiratorial corners, garnering attention on sites such as Gateway Pundit and True Pundit.

Claims of “crisis actors” in the wake of the deadly shooting in Florida sounded off across the internet’s conspiratorial corners, garnering attention on sites such as Gateway Pundit and True Pundit.

On Wednesday CNN anchor Chris Cuomo retweeted a story from the Tab, which claimed the author (a 20 year-old with an expired ID) was able to purchase an AR-15 in five minutes.

“The U.S. district attorney has announced that he will be pursuing charges of treason against the former President Barack Obama,” a false headline from Averific ran over the weekend.

Internet hoaxes, like bad stand-up comedy or chain restaurant themes, often struggle with originality. That’s why you’ll see old stories re-emerge year after year.

As noted in our most recent fact check, false information is easily spread in times of chaos and confusion. Early reports are often incorrect or incomplete and information surrounding the horrific school shooting in Florida on Wednesday is no exception.

In the wake of the tragic school shooting yesterday in Parkland, Florida fake photos began to surface, spreading misinformation and false accusations surrounding the event.

Facebook users marked an article published last month by Deep State Nation as potentially containing false information.

Voter fraud is a favorite topic for hoax websites, especially when it comes to the 2016 election.

An older online myth resurfaced this week, claiming that Malboro was set to release marijuana cigarettes in four states.

The controversial FISA memo, a GOP-drafted documents alleging surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign, generated an expansive array of responses from political commentators and pundits when it was released last week. After discussing the FISA memo, Fox News’s Judge Jeanine Pirro told viewers…

The release of additional texts between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page has some outlets reporting that the messages implicate President Obama for interfering in the bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email.

If ever a snare were set for a conspiracy theorist, it would most certainly be the "Steele dossier" released for public consumption by BuzzFeed in January of last year, alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. It has the perfect ingredients for a conspiracy: opposition…

The Word of God Online has some fake news it would like to share.

Amid the flurry of rumors stemming from Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury, U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley has faced accusations that she had an affair with Donald Trump, accusations which she has denied.

Facebook users have flagged a recent article announcing new legislation that “makes it legal for atheist doctors and nurses to refuse care to religious patients.”

The recent federal government shutdown (bringing with it colorful talking sticks, fake news, and finger-pointing festivities) that started when the parties couldn’t agree on how to include DACA protections as part of a continuing resolution, has given new life to the conversation surrounding…

“Breaking: Trump’s ENTIRE wall just got paid for by ONE person & you won’t believe who!”

“Republicans Just Killed The Bill To Make Sure Troops Get Paid During Shutdown,” or so ran a headline from Addicting Info, flagged as potential fake news by Facebook users.

After Oprah Winfrey’s explosive Golden Globes speech, the internet has been abuzz with Oprah-related chatter, attracting fake news and false information.

An article published on December 6, 2017, claimed that Donald Trump’s administration had cut a Veterans Affairs program for homeless veterans while the number of homeless veterans increased.

A conspiracy theory has regained popularity and circulation on Facebook this week regarding Klaus Eberwein’s suicide and alleged connection to the Clintons.

Did the Supreme Court uphold a “1952 Law Outlawing Islam in Government”?

On Friday, Fox News claimed that one of Roy Moore’s accusers forged some of a yearbook inscription which had previously been used to substantiate Moore’s connection with the alleged victim.

After President Donald Trump’s announced Tuesday that he was reducing the land size of two national monuments, Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear store, replaced its homepage with a statement claiming that Trump had illegally stolen that land.

Following reports that the U.S. voted in opposition to a U.N. resolution “combating Nazism and … practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” pundits and activists have cited the decision as demonstrative of the…

Correction, Nov. 17, 3:27 p.m.: Fact Check originally wrote that state law prohibited Neal from owning or making a gun. In fact, he was prohibited under the Federal Gun Act. The piece has been updated accordingly.

The morning after a deadly terrorist attack in New York City, President Donald Trump tweeted “The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.”

A mailer sent out by the Democrat party of Virginia depicts Republican candidate Ed Gillespie alongside President Donald Trump with the torch-bearing white supremacists from the rally in Charlottesville pictured below them.

Men's studies actually exists, but not for the reason you think. I was confused at first when I saw that a college actually had a men's studies department. The idea of "men's studies" is usually a trope used to bash the existence of "women's studies" and is (usually) not a serious proposal. Yet,…

The Waffle House way. In times of disaster, it's pretty rare for a Waffle House to close. The company is famous for its disaster response, keeping stores open on a limited menu to keep people dry, warm, fed, and happy. In Houston, two stores have closed, but the company's disaster apparatus jumped…

Several websites pushed out a fresh accusation of plagiarism against First Lady Melania Trump—and once again, the alleged source for the supposedly ill-gotten words is former First Lady Michelle Obama.

National Security Agency analysts under the Obama administration improperly searched Americans' information, but the searches were conducted largely out of error, according to a review of publicly available intelligence documents reported on by Circa last week.

Thursday on Facebook, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed (of Bloom County fame) posted a letter purportedly from President Donald Trump's New York attorney, Marc E. Kasowitz, taking Breathed to task for disseminating "flagrantly altered photos [of the president] wearing apparel featuring your artwork."…

Reports spread over the weekend that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault had "flooded," succumbing to the same force it was designed to protect the world's food supply from: global warming.

What's interesting about media fact-checkers is that, while they often prove to be subjective in their findings, they do allow others to objectively evaluate them since they append value judgments such as "true" or "false" to statements. I've previously noted two university studies, one at the…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Mark Hemingway on the state of the fourth estate in the first days of the Trump presidency.

The Washington Post's "fact check" of Donald Trump's inaugural address is a pretty perfect distillation of one of the most egregious aspects of "fact checking." It kind of pains me to say this, because while I have serious problems with other fact-checking organizations that are institutionally…

The New York Times style guide must make for interesting reading. Surely, there's an admonishment somewhere near the top: Insert into any article, no matter how unrelated to the president-elect, a slam on Donald Trump. And if you can dress it up as a "fact check," all the better.

Readers of THE WEEKLY STANDARD have been treated over the years to countless examples of malpractice from so-called media fact checkers. Some of those fact checkers are worse than others. It's an open secret, and one the media don't want to acknowledge, that PolitiFact in particular is horribly…

Readers of THE WEEKLY STANDARD have been treated over the years to countless examples of malpractice from so-called media fact checkers. Some of those fact checkers are worse than others. It's an open secret, and one the media don't want to acknowledge, that PolitiFact in particular is horribly…

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton defended Donald Trump's track record of receiving false and misleading ratings from fact checkers Monday.

Via Commentary's Noah Rothman, I see The New York Times is up with a feature on Florida senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio's new television ad airing in New Hampshire and Iowa. In the middle of describing the ad, the article contains this gem:

Following Marco Rubio's announcement that he's running for president, the Associated Press decided to "fact check" some of the candidate's rhetoric. If you follow the news, you're probably aware that "fact checking" is more often than not a lame attempt to cloak partisan opinion behind a veil of…

The Tampa Bay Times, the paper that puts out (and funds) the supposedly unbiased PolitiFact, has just enthusiastically endorsed President Obama for a second term.  The Times writes that “[w]ithout hesitation” it “recommends Barack Obama for re-election as president.” The paper cites Obama’s “steady…

The New York Times reports today that the "the Obama campaign and Democratic groups have run commercials relating to abortion about 30,000 times since July 2 — about 10 percent of their ads — including one that falsely claimed Mr. Romney’s opposition to abortion extended to cases of rape and…

So CNN is bird-dogging Mitt Romney on his claim that it is “illegal in this country to have automatic weapons.”

So CNN is bird-dogging Mitt Romney on his claim that it is “illegal in this country to have automatic weapons.”

So CNN is bird-dogging Mitt Romney on his claim that it is “illegal in this country to have automatic weapons.”

After staring in some amazement at PolitiFact’s ostensibly unbiased rulings on the truthfulness of various statements made during Wednesday night’s presidential debate, I finally realized what the problem is: PolitiFact’s self-described Truth-O-Meter is clearly broken. Thankfully, however, it’s…

Over the last year or so, the argument has been made many times in these pages that media “fact checking” organizations are a discredit to the journalism profession. Further discrediting the journalism profession at this point is no easy thing to do, yet fact checkers seem more than equal to the…

A savvy friend writes:

All right, you’re in the Obama White House. You see that the monthly jobs report is terrible, worse than expected. The Federal Reserve is so worried about the economy that it proposes 24/7 pump-priming to jolt it out of the doldrums. A mob invades the United States embassy in Cairo, pulls down the…

If you missed Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention last week and tried to play catch-up the next morning, you could be forgiven for concluding that nothing the Wisconsin congressman said was true.

Talking Points Memo has a good story about President Obama's latest incident of historical illiteracy at a speech where he got both U.S. and world history wrong in the course of lecturing Republicans about being know-nothings. Here’s a sample, from TPM:

Earlier this week, Keep America Safe released the following ad, criticizing President Obama for not taking his military commanders' advice and for prematurely withdrawing from Afghanistan:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is busy scaremongering about the prospect of a government shutdown if the Democrats don't agree to Republican budget cuts: