Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2024
This week's election: Lithuania Presidential Elections
Washington Post
Election Date: 12/05/2023
In the elections, the popular incumbent, Gitanas Nausėda, is favoured to win another five-year term, competing against seven other candidates. Among his main rivals is Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte. The two candidates already faced each other in the 2nd round of the previous presidential election in May 2019. If no candidate wins the minimum of 50% of the votes, a runoff will be held on May 26.
#Conflicts
Snopes
Half-True: Donald Trump stated that he would not defend NATO allies if they were attacked by Russia.
Trump claimed that he would not protect NATO allies against Russian aggression if they are not "paid up." NATO member states do not "pay" into NATO; instead, NATO membership comes with a commitment by each country to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defense.
AP News
Half-True: France sent troops to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter) that France has not deployed troops to Ukraine, calling the claim “disinformation.” Reports of the deployment cited a May 3 blog post by Stephen Bryen, a deputy undersecretary for the Department of Defense during the Reagan administration.
Snopes
Half-True: A video shows Palestinians evacuating the southern Gaza city of Rafah in May 2024 ahead of a planned Israeli Defense Forces assault.
Israel issued an evacuation order to over 100,000 Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on May 6, 2024, suggesting that the country would move forward with a planned military operation in the city. The video being shared showed is from November 2023. It shows Palestinians evacuating in a southerly direction toward Rafah earlier during the conflict.
#Politics
PolitiFact
Half-True: Donald Trump told Time magazine that “states should monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans.”
Former President Donald Trump didn’t tell Time magazine that he thought states "should" monitor women’s pregnancies and punish women who get illegal abortions, as President Joe Biden said. Rather, Trump’s comments allowed for the possibility that states could monitor and prosecute women for getting illegal abortions.
Factly
False: Video shows Modi saying that “BJP can never build a strong India.”
In Rajasthan’s Jalore during the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi asserted that the "Congress can never make India strong." However, this portion of his speech has been digitally altered, substituting “Congress” with “BJP.”
PolitiFact
False: Donald Trump stated that he is not allowed to testify because of a gag order.
An April 1 gag order bans former President Donald Trump from talking about witnesses or jurors in the New York case about falsifying business records. The gag order does not prevent Trump from testifying in court. When the prosecution rests its case, Trump has the right to testify on his own behalf. A judge never prohibits a defendant from testifying.
USA Today
False: Congress is considering a bill that would criminalize questioning 9/11.
There is no such legislation mentioned on bill tracking websites or in legitimate news outlets. The image that is being circulated with this claim is from a cropped version of a fabricated New York Post article.
#Healthcare
Africa Check
False: There is a different and deadly coronavirus called the XBB variant.
As South Africa prepares for its annual influenza season, posts from April 2024 warn of a more dangerous new form of coronavirus spreading in the country. But XBB has largely come and gone, without evidence of the strain being more deadly than other strains of coronavirus.
AFP
False: Alkaline diet cures cancer and other diseases.
Years after his death, an herbalist's supposed cures for cancer and other diseases are amassing hundreds of thousands of interactions on social media. However, oncologists have stated there is no scientific evidence the plant-based "alkaline diet" is effective. Those claims may also cause patients to delay potentially life-saving treatments.
PolitiFact
Barely-True: Illegal Immigrants cost Florida taxpayers $566 million for 54,000 hospital visits.
Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration reported that immigrants in the U.S. illegally received $566 million in health care services from June 2023 to December 2023. It’s unclear how much of the $566 million was covered by federal and state programs, or by immigrants in the country illegally via private insurance or self-pay. Several healthcare experts also questioned why the Florida agency relied on the total hospital operating expenses to come to this figure. They also said this calculation likely inflated the estimate.
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Falsk: Undersøgelse af borgernes tillid til politiet får kritik.
Justitsminister Peter Hummelgaard udtaler, at på baggrund af Justitsministeriets nye tryghedsundersøgelse har 86 procent af danskerne tillid til politiet. Dette tal er taget ud af en sammenhæng, da respondenterne skal svare ja eller nej til, om de ville ringe til politiet i en nødsituation. Derefter kan de give en vurdering fra 1 til 10 af deres tillid til politiet. Derfor siger figuren ikke, at danskerne har høj tillid til politiet.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: California got its name from a fictional island inhabited solely by Black women.
During the age of exploration, the Spanish writer and poet Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo published the chivalry romance novel "Las sergas de Esplandián" — "The Adventures of Esplandián." In the book, Rodríguez de Montalvo described an island called California. He wrote that Black women inhabited it, without a single man among them. The women also tamed griffins — mythical lion-eagle hybrids which were trained to attack and eat men and boys. As Spanish conquistadors were exploring the Americas, the name of the island was used when naming the state of California.
Factiverse is searching for an experienced Senior Backend and ML Engineer to join the team!
Factiverse is looking for an experienced Senior Backend and ML Engineer to join the team to spearhead our mission of shielding individuals and organisations from misinformation. Click here to learn more!
Factiverse GPT
Concerned about hallucinations in ChatGPT? Use our GPT and verify information. We search in real-time in Google, Bing and Semantic Scholar simultaneously and propose the most credible sources. Try our GPT now!
Check out the Factiverse Blog
Want to know more about the world of misinformation and fact-checking? If so, make sure to out the Factiverse Blog! We explore these topics to give our readers a better understanding of these topics while also giving guidelines on how organisations can protect themselves. Click here to look at our list of posts.