Your weekly fact-checks
#Politics
False: The gay dating app Grindr says will reveal every Republican who secretly uses the app if Florida doesn’t stop passing homophobic and transphobic laws
This claim originated on a Twitter account that says it publishes comedy and satire. A Grindr spokesperson said the Twitter claim was false and that the app protects user privacy. (Source: PolitiFact)
False: Vladimir Putin has been arrested
Images that claim to show Russian President Vladimir Putin being arrested are fake. Putin had not been arrested at the time the photos were first shared online. (Source: PolitiFact)
False: Anthony Fauci has been arrested
We found no evidence to back the claim of Fauci's arrest. The viral images show discrepancies that are similar to those observed in images generated by Artificial Intelligence tools. (Source: WebQoof - The Quint)
False: Police officers are joining protests in France against President Macron’s plan to raise the pension age
The video was miscaptioned and shows French police personnel discarding their handcuffs in a demonstration in 2020. (Source: Reuters)
#Technology
False: The US Congress has officially banned TikTok
Although President Joe Biden and many members of Congress have signaled support for a potential TikTok ban, no action has been taken. The app was banned from use on federal government devices in December 2021, but as of publication, there was no ban for the general public. (Source: PolitiFact)
False: At a robotics company in Japan this week, four robots being developed for military applications killed 29 humans in the lab.
The footage in the Facebook video does not depict actual robots attacking humans. It was created using motion-capture technology and computer-generated imagery. The woman who made the claim in 2018 credited an anonymous source. Since then, the claim has been repeatedly debunked. (Source: PolitiFact)
#Health
False: Bill Gates want to control the population by killing people with vaccines
No evidence confirms Bill Gates has ever made such a statement. He has suggested using vaccines and other methods to control child mortality and subsequently reducing population growth, CO2 emissions and resource usage. (Source: Thip Media)
False: At a Wisconsin school, a 12-year-old girl "was transitioned into a boy by school officials without parental consent"
Two parents pulled their child out of the school because the child had wanted to use a male name and pronouns and school staff said they would support that request, despite the parents not allowing it. But he idea that school officials "transitioned" the child is misleading, because the child was pulled out of school before the pronoun and name switch could occur. (Source: PolitiFact)
#Other
Missing Context: German cities are adding Arabic to street signs which demonstrates "replacement migration"
Dusseldorf introduced only a single Arabic street sign. It was added after a Japanese sign was erected, and authorities plan more street signs in other languages to represent Dusseldorf’s diverse population. (Source: Reuters)
False: An all-female investment team was leading Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) when it collapsed.
A screenshot from a CNBC program falsely claims that all four women led SVB. However, only one of them is part of SVB as Chief Investment Officer while the others are investment professionals from different firms. (Source: Reuters)
False: The Taliban tweeted claim about having the 'second-largest collection of Humvees behind' the United States
The Twitter account called "Taliban Public Relations Department" is a satire account and not the PR arm of the Taliban (Source: Lead Stories)
False: Gays take up 2% of the world's population, but commit 45% of sexual assaults against children
People in the field today, who study child sexual abuse, do not consider gay or lesbian people to be a greater risk of being abusers than other people. Also, a 2021 Ipsos survey of 27 countries found that, on average, three percent of people identify as gay, lesbian or homosexual, not two percent as the claim states. (Source: Lead Stories)
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