4 min read

Your weekly fact-checks

Your weekly fact-checks

#Gather by Factiverse is now live!

Gather by Factiverse has launched — the easiest way for journalists to automate research across YouTube, podcasts, TV/radio shows, political debates, and more. Extract key claims and get verified context fast, so you never miss what matters. Whether you're tracking a breaking story or monitoring prominent voices, Gather cuts through the noise and puts verified insights at your fingertips.

Get started today at https://app.factiverse.ai/ for just €29/month.

Want special access and a 3-month money-back guarantee? Email sales@factiverse.ai to register your interest.

#TrumpCheck

Snopes
True: At the White House Easter Egg Roll, Trump called Harris "a low IQ person," slammed Biden for using an autopen, and briefed families on rescued fighter pilots standing next to the Easter Bunny.
At the 2026 White House Easter Egg Roll, Trump called Kamala Harris a "low IQ person," told children at a coloring station that Biden "was incapable of signing his name" and used an autopen, and repeatedly discussed the ongoing Iran war with attending families. Snopes rated the viral claims as correctly attributed, with all remarks captured on the White House's own YouTube livestream.

#Politics

Lead Stories
False: Sky News reported that the Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar had withdrawn from the election days before it was supposed to take place.
The British news channel had not reported that Magyar had dropped out of the race for prime minister. There is also no credible evidence that he has ended his bid in this highly contested election.

StopFake
False: Ukraine Systematically Interferes in Western Elections — NewsGuard
The video is fabricated — NewsGuard never published such material. The tactics it describes (bot farms, DDoS attacks, fabricated content) are actually documented methods of Russian influence operations. Its timing, ahead of elections in Hungary and Armenia, points to a Kremlin effort to discredit Ukraine and boost Moscow-aligned candidates.

BOOM Live
False: Indian Congress MP Shashi Tharoor criticised India for its strategy in the ongoing US-Iran war and praised Pakistan.
A deepfake video falsely depicts Indian MP Shashi Tharoor praising Pakistan for mediating the US-Iran ceasefire and criticising the Modi government — but BOOM traced it to a real India Today interview from December 26, 2025, with fabricated audio and a fake chyron added. An AI voice detector confirmed the audio was manipulated, and the video was amplified by pro-Pakistan accounts on X.

#Healthcare

Snopes
True: A veterinary pharmaceutical company is developing a pill for senior dogs to extend their lifespan.
The drug is not yet approved by the FDA, or had any evidence of its efficacy been published. However, the FDA has accepted the drug’s Reasonable Expectation of Effectiveness and Target Animal Safety requirements, completing two of three conditions for Expanded Conditional Approval by the FDA. Conditional approval allows the manufacturer to sell the drug “before proving it meets the ‘substantial evidence’ standard of effectiveness for full approval,” according to the FDA.

Lead Stories
False: RFK Jr. says covid vaccines causes "turbo cancer" and causes "gayness" and called Anthony Fauci a "goblin."
The audio in the video has been altered. An un-altered original video of RFK Jr. originally making the speech shows that he never claims the vaccine causes those problems. The video of the manipulated video has a watermark from a known satirist/troll account.

#Conflicts

DW - Deutsche Welle
False: Ukraine organised an oil blockade against Hungary, attacked TurkStream with dozens of drones on Russian territory, and now Serbian officials have found explosives planted next to the pipeline.
Serbian intelligence denied any Ukrainian link, with VBA director Duro Jovanic stating "it is not true that Ukrainians tried to organise this sabotage." No verifiable evidence has been made public identifying the perpetrators, though the explosives were confirmed to be of US manufacture.

Snopes
False: U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Paul Lanzilotta refused President Donald Trump's order to attack Iran by issuing "a formal legal rebuttal" that froze the chain of command until Trump's deadline to attack passed.
A viral Facebook post claimed Rear Adm. Paul Lanzilotta refused Trump's orders to strike Iran by issuing a "JAG memo" from the USS Gerald R. Ford — but the original account admitted a day later it was entirely AI-generated, calling it "an experiment in AI storytelling that went a bit too far." No evidence exists that Lanzilotta defied any orders or issued any memo, and it was confirmed that the ship had simply departed Croatia and continued its routine deployment.

Snopes
True: More Americans were killed in Chicago in a four-week period of March 2026 than have been killed in action since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.
Chicago recorded 34 murders in the relevant four-week periods, compared to 13 confirmed US military deaths since Operation Epic Fury launched on February 28, 2026. However, the comparison omits that over 300 US service members were injured in the same period, and Chicago's murder figures remain preliminary and subject to revision.

#WTF?! What The Fact of the week

PolitiFact
Mostly-True: The U.S. Navy was created "to free international waters from the Barbary pirates."
One reason the U.S. Navy was created in the late 1700s and early 1800s was to counter North African states’ attacks on shipping, during conflicts that became known as the Barbary wars. That situation shares some similarities with today’s Iran war; both involved the U.S. taking military action to protect trade against efforts to exact tributes or tolls.

Use Factiverse to extract crucial insights in real-time to strengthen your reporting

Factiverse helps media organisations and government teams monitor and analyse real-time reporting, identifying false narratives in elections before they spread. Reach out for a consultation to see how our tools can strengthen your reporting strategy

Contact Us

info@factiverse.ai

Linkedin

Twitter