Category: Fact Check

 

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation March 13 that could ban TikTok in the United States, but a recent Facebook post seemingly reacting to the news overstates what happened. 

“WOW,” the March 13 post said. “They really just banned TikTok… we got 6 months left to use it.” 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The House passed a bill 352-65 that would force TikTok to divest from its Beijing-based parent company or face a nationwide ban, The Washington Post reported. There was bipartisan support for the measure.

But the U.S. Senate hasn’t yet voted on the legislation, and some senators “have expressed concern that it may run afoul of the Constitution by infringing on millions of Americans’ rights to free expression and by explicitly targeting a business operating in the United States,” the Post said.

President Joe Biden has said he’ll sign the legislation if Congress passes it. But the measure’s future is uncertain, and there’s no six-month timeline.

We rate this post False.

 

Two years after Florida’s governor received national attention over a new law restricting LGBTQ+ instruction in schools, the state reached a settlement with plaintiffs who said the law was unconstitutional.

Critics and some media outlets panned the law, nicknaming it “Don’t Say Gay.” LGBTQ+ advocates sued over the measure, saying it was vague enough that classroom teachers feared being targeted and fired for merely mentioning their gay partners or for discussing LGBTQ+ identity in the classroom. 

As news of a settlement over the Parental Rights in Education Act broke March 11, both sides appeared to proclaim victory.

“After nearly 2 years of fighting DeSantis’ ​”Don’t Say ​Gay or Trans” law in the courts, we’ve reached a historic settlement with the state that puts an end to some of the most dangerous impacts of ​this law for students, parents, & teachers,” statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Florida, one of the plaintiffs, said on X.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, meanwhile, issued a press release declaring the settlement “a major win against the activists who sought to stop Florida’s efforts to keep radical gender and sexual ideology out of the classrooms.”

“Their judicial activism has failed,” the press release said. “Today’s mutually agreed settlement ensures that the law will remain in effect.”

DeSantis signed the legislation into law in March 2022. It prohibited “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten to third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” The Florida Board of Education later expanded the law’s applicability through grade 12.

When LGBTQ+ advocates and others dubbed the measure “don’t say gay,” Republicans pushed back. The bill never says the word “gay” is not allowed in school, although advocates argued the law would send a message that could extend beyond lesson plans and assigned readings into what teachers can say about their families, what photos can be displayed in classrooms or what books can be on shelves. 

The eight-page court settlement does not change the statute’s text, but seeks to clarify what falls under its purview. The state in filings to plaintiffs had already argued many of the points the court settlement expanded upon. The settlement requires all Florida school boards to receive a copy. One LGBTQ+ advocate noted, however, that the settlement does not require districts to reexamine or change policies they may have already enacted in response to the law. 

Here are four things we learned from reading the settlement:

The law pertains to instruction, not ‘mere discussion.’

The settlement says the “statute restricts only teaching on the topics of sexual orientation and gender identity in a classroom setting,” not “mere discussion of them.”

“Typical class participation and schoolwork are not ‘instruction,’” it says.

Teachers may not use books to teach about sexual orientation or gender identity. But they would be “free to ‘respond if students discuss … their identities or family life,’” and “provide grades and feedback,” if a student, for example, writes an essay about their LGBTQ+ identity, the settlement says.

Students and teachers can refer to a person’s family. And the law does not prohibit gay teachers from keeping photos of their spouses on their desks.

“Just as no one would suggest that references to numbers in a history book constitute ‘instruction on mathematics,” the statute does not prohibit “incidental references in literature” to LGBTQ+ identity, the settlement says.

Such references do not violate the statute “any more than a math problem asking students to add bushels of apples is ‘instruction on’ apple farming,” the settlement says.

Under this law, teachers can still post “safe space” stickers, sponsor LGBTQ+ clubs and intervene in bullying cases. 

The law does not prevent school employees from intervening in bullying cases that target  LGBTQ+ students. Employees need not remove “safe space stickers,” because they do not amount to classroom instruction. Gay-Straight Alliance clubs are not prohibited either under this statute.

Settlement clarifies the law prohibits instruction on any sexual orientation, including heterosexuality.

The law applies equally to instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, whether it is LGBTQ+ or not.

“The statute does not target ‘sexual orientations and gender identities that differ from heterosexual and cisgender identities,’” the settlement says. “For example, it would violate that statute to instruct students that heterosexuality is superior or that gender identity is immutable based on biological traits.”

Attorney Simone Chriss, director of the Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel Inc., who is in litigation with the state over other LGBTQ+ matters, told PolitiFact that she is concerned that the settlement’s language is contradicted by another legislative measure that became law in 2023. H.B. 1069 says, “It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution that is provided or authorized by the Constitution and laws of Florida that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”

Other statutory restrictions affecting educational materials and educators’ use of gender-affirming pronouns remain.

Although the Parental Rights in Education Act may not pertain to library books because they aren’t in themselves “classroom instruction,” the settlement clarifies that other sections of Florida law that govern these materials remain in effect. 

The settlement doesn’t affect 2022 legislation that has been used to remove books from libraries, for example.

Also, H.B. 1069, prohibits the use of gender-affirming pronouns and honorifics in schools. That means transgender teachers still face limitations on how they communicate with students. 

How long does it typically take to count all the votes in a presidential election? According to social media influencer Andrew Tate, the answer is less than 24 hours.

Tate, who is on trial for human trafficking, was featured in a recent Instagram video, talking about the 2020 election. 

“Never in the history of an election in America has the results taken more than 24 hours to count,” Tate said in the March 8 post. “Never in history. Here we are seven days later, they’re not finished.” 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The Instagram clip of Tate comes from a Nov. 21, 2020, podcast on Romanian fitness influencer Andy Popescu’s YouTube channel. 

The 2020 election did not represent the first time presidential election vote counting took longer than 24 hours. In fact, experts said, it has always taken more than 24 hours to count presidential election ballots.

Perhaps the most memorable example: The 2000 presidential election between then-Vice President Al Gore and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, which was decided more than a month after Election Day when the Supreme Court stopped a manual recount and declared Bush the winner. 

“The United States has never counted all the ballots in a federal general election in 24 hours,” David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that promotes trust in election security, told PolitiFact. “Every single state takes days or even weeks to certify official counts, by design, to ensure that the counts are final and accurate.” 

The United States Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that provides information on election administration, says on its website that the results reported on election night “are never the final, certified results.” 

Media organizations often call the election winners before the official count is over based on early ballots and data on demographics and voting history. 

“Election night ‘winners’ are those that the media has projected will win based on the margin of victory of votes already counted versus the volume of bills outstanding,” Tammy Patrick, chief executive officer of programs at the National Association of Election Officials, told PolitiFact. “There are always ballots still being processed — that is why EVERY state has their official canvass days, even weeks later.” 

In the 2016 presidential election, The Associated Press called Trump the winner at 2:29 a.m. EST on Nov. 9, before the organization finished calling every state, based on Trump winning the necessary number of electoral votes. Congress met nearly two months later, on Jan. 6, 2017, to officially certify the election. “That’s to ensure the counts are complete and verified,” Becker said. 

In 2020, it took four days to tally enough ballots for media outlets to call the election. That election took longer than the previous presidential election to call because pandemic restrictions led to a historic amount of mail and early ballots, which take longer to count than in-person  Election Day votes. 

The counting process for mail ballots is not uniform across states. Fifteen states, including Maine, Minnesota and Virginia, do not allow absentee votes to be counted until after the polls close, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Michigan and Wisconsin did not allow mail ballots to be counted before Election Day 2020, Becker said. That is why the graphs in the Instagram clip show that Biden overtook Trump’s lead after the polls closed. 

More recent state elections have taken even longer to call. For example, Minnesota’s 2008 U.S. Senate race was declared eight months after Election Day, and a 2010 Alaska U.S. Senate race  was called after two weeks. 

We rate the claim that the 2020 election was the only time in American history that an election took more than 24 hours to count False.

New York state Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-East Elmhurst, has championed cutting child poverty. She co-sponsored the Child Poverty Reduction Act, which creates a task force and initiatives for cutting the state’s child poverty by half in 2032.

Nevertheless, solving the problem will require more work, she said in a Feb. 6 X post by Ramos’ deputy chief of staff, Astrid M. Aune. Ramos said, “Half of the cities with the highest rates of child poverty are in” New York state.

However, Census Bureau data shows this is incorrect.

The Census Bureau measures poverty by comparing a household’s annual income with the federal poverty threshold, which varies based on family size. Child poverty refers to people younger than 18 belonging to a household that qualifies as being in poverty. 

The bureau last released data on poverty covering 2022. Looking at the child poverty rate for the 640 U.S. cities with at least 50,000 population that year, three New York state jurisdictions appeared in the top 50 for child poverty rate. They were Albany fifth (with a 48.2% child poverty rate); Rochester 12th (with a 40.9% rate); and Syracuse 23rd (with a 37.1% rate). 

That’s only 6% of the cities with the highest child poverty rates, or well below the half Ramos said. 

Only one other New York state city made the top 100; Buffalo ranked 65th with a 30.4% child poverty rate. The other ranked cities were out of the top 100 — Mount Vernon ranked 129th (with 24.7%), New York City ranked 132nd (with 24.5%), Schenectady ranked 215th (with 19.6%), Yonkers ranked 243rd (with 18.3%) and Cheektowaga ranked 245th (with 18.2%). 

The Census Bureau also publishes a longer list of jurisdictions below that population threshold. Of these 29,809 cities and villages, 434, or about 3%, were in the list’s top half. 

Ramos’ office referred PolitiFact New York to the 2023 progress report of the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, a body created by the Child Poverty Reduction Act, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed in 2021. 

The council’s report cites 2019 data showing that Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse were among the 10 U.S. cities with the highest child poverty rates.

That’s slightly off — those three cities ranked in the top 15 in 2019, according to the Census Bureau — but that’s not near half.

Our ruling

Ramos said, “Half of the cities with the highest rates of child poverty are in” New York state.

Looking at cities with more than 50,000 residents in 2022, three New York state jurisdictions made the list of 50 cities with the highest child poverty rates. In 2019, four New York state cities made that list. 

In neither year did cities in New York account for anything close to half of the jurisdictions with the highest child poverty rates. The same held true for a longer list of jurisdictions with smaller populations in 2022. 

We rate the statement False.

A political ad mocking President Joe Biden uses a partial clip from a press conference to create the impression that Biden froze in silence.

Biden did pause — right before ripping into his rival, former President Donald Trump. The ad by MAGA Inc., which supports Trump, left that part out.

The March 7 ad aired before Biden’s State of the Union address and began by showing Biden saying, “Do whatever the hell they want.” 

It then shows Biden pausing, with a few blinks and mumbles, for about eight seconds. “I guess I should clear my mind here a little bit,” he says after the silence. 

The ad’s narrator cuts in, over images of Biden stumbling up stairs to a stage: “We can all see Joe Biden’s weakness. If Biden wins, can he even survive till 2029? The real question is, can we?” 

The ad ends with a split screen video of Biden stumbling up Air Force One’s stairs and Vice President Kamala Harris laughing. (Harris was speaking at a 2023 Juneteenth event, not at the president’s stumble, which came in March 2021.)

The ad sends a message: Biden, 81, is old. He is stumbling, verbally and physically, and can’t find his words to deliver a coherent sentence. 

Polls show widespread concern among voters about Biden’s age. A February New York Times/Siena poll showed that 73% of all registered voters said Biden was too old to be effective while 42% said the same for Trump

But the ad misleads by stripping these remarks of context, leaving voters with a different impression.

Biden spoke Feb. 16 in the White House’s Roosevelt Room about the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei A. Navalny. 

Biden praised Navalny as a “powerful voice of the truth” and said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “responsible for his death.”

Biden also discussed Trump’s comments at a rally days earlier, when Trump said he told an unnamed North Atlantic Treaty Organization country leader that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to an ally that didn’t pay for collective defense.

Biden took a long pause before criticizing Trump at length. Here’s what he said in the unedited video (minute 4):

“All of us should reject the dangerous statements made by the previous president that invited Russia to invade our NATO allies if they weren’t paying up. He said if an ally did not pay their dues, he’d encourage Russia to, quote, ‘do whatever the hell they want.’”

He paused.

“I guess I should clear my mind here a little bit and not say what I’m really thinking. But let me be clear: This is an outrageous thing for a president to say. I can’t fathom. I can’t fathom. From (Harry) Truman on, they’re rolling over in their graves hearing this.

“As long as I’m president, America stands by our sacred commitment to our NATO allies as they have stood by their commitments to us repeatedly. 

“Putin and the whole world should know: If any adversary were to attack us, our NATO allies would back us. And if Putin were to attack a NATO ally, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory. Now is the time for even greater unity among our NATO allies to stand up to the threat that Putin’s Russia poses.”

NBC described the pause as a “dramatic effect, expressing exasperation with Trump.” It’s up to listeners to decide whether they viewed that as a rhetorical tool. But the full comments show Biden was delivering a clear message about his view on Trump, NATO and Russia.

We have seen this tactic before. In 2020, for example, Trump’s campaign presented a clip of Biden saying “Why am I doing this? Why? What is my real aim?” without disclosing that Biden was quoting the pope.

Our ruling

The ad from MAGA Inc. portrayed Biden as saying “do whatever the hell they want,” pausing, and saying he needed to “clear my mind here a little bit.”

The ad used a partial moment from a press conference to show Biden as addled. But there are issues with this example.

Biden was quoting Trump saying Russia can “do whatever the hell they want” with regard to invading NATO countries that don’t pay for collective defense. Biden’s pause could be deemed artful or awkward, but he said he needed to clear his mind and “not say what I’m really thinking.” He launched into a pointed critique, calling Trump’s rhetoric “an outrageous thing for a president to say,” and that past presidents were “rolling over in their graves hearing” Trump.

None of that appears in the deceptively edited ad.

The statement contains an element of truth about the pause and some of his words but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate the ad Mostly False.

RELATED: Is Donald Trump’s NATO talk a warning or a negotiating tactic? Here’s what he has said

RELATED: Fact-checking Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address

A recent social media post made what appeared to be a surprising announcement about the 2024 presidential race.

“Breaking news: Donald Trump has declared that he is pulling out of the run for president,” the narrator said in a Feb. 22 TikTok video, which was viewed more than 161,000 times before TikTok removed it from the platform.

Of course, Trump hasn’t dropped out of the 2024 race. As of March 12, he’d secured enough delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination.

Besides the false claim, the video had another distinctive element: The audio appeared to be made with artificial intelligence.

PolitiFact identified several TikTok accounts spreading false narratives about the 2024 election and Trump through its partnership with TikTok to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

Videos on YouTube made similar false claims. These videos, which also appeared to have AI-generated audio, were reshared with lower engagement on Facebook and X.

Generative AI is a broad term that describes when computers create new content, such as text, photos, videos and audio, by identifying patterns in existing data. This year, the United States and more than 50 other countries are holding national elections, and generative AI is likely to play an outsized role. In February in Indonesia, AI-generated cartoons helped rehabilitate the image of a former military general linked to human rights abuses, who won the country’s presidential election.

Recent advances in generative AI have made it harder to determine whether online content is real or fake. We talked to experts about how this technology is changing the information landscape and how to spot AI-generated audio. Unlike video, there aren’t visual abnormalities that can hint at manipulation.

When contacted for comment, a TikTok spokesperson said, “To apply our harmful misinformation policies, we detect misleading content and send it to fact-checking partners for factual assessment.” Once alerted to the content highlighted in this story, TikTok removed it from the platform.

Experts analyze videos’ use of AI-generated audio

We asked generative AI experts to analyze five TikTok videos that made false and misleading claims across multiple accounts to determine whether we’d accurately surmised that the audio was AI-generated.

Hafiz Malik, a University of Michigan electrical and computer engineering professor who studies deepfakes, said his AI detection tool classified four of the videos as “synthetic,” or AI-generated, audio. The fifth was flagged as “low confidence,” which Malik said means some parts were labeled as “deepfake,” while others weren’t.

Siwei Lyu, a University at Buffalo computer science and engineering professor who specializes in digital media forensics, said his AI detection algorithms also classified a majority of the five videos as using AI-generated audio.

TikTok videos make outrageous, false claims

Trump was a focus of these TikTok accounts; several of the accounts used photos of the former president as their profile photos.

(Screengrabs from TikTok)

These accounts followed a similar playbook: eye-catching headlines often displayed against red backgrounds; videos containing clips or still photos of famous figures, including Trump and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; and a disembodied narrator.

Some videos made false claims about the well-being of high-profile people — that Trump had a heart attack and New York Attorney General Letitia James was hospitalized for gunshot wounds. James sued Trump in 2022 accusing him of fraudulently inflating his net worth; a judge ruled in February that Trump must pay a $454 million penalty.

Another video displayed text reading, “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas joins other justices to remove 2024 race candidate.” This appears to misleadingly refer to the Supreme Court’s case on Trump’s ballot eligibility, in which Thomas and the other justices unanimously ruled that individual states cannot bar presidential candidates, including Trump, from the ballot.

(Screengrabs from TikTok)

All of these TikTok accounts were created within the past few months. The one that appeared the oldest had videos dating to November 2023; the newest began posting content March 1. Three of the accounts had TikTok’s default username of “user” followed by 13 numbers.

These accounts collectively posted hundreds of videos and garnered hundreds of thousands of views, likes and followers before TikTok removed the accounts and videos.

We also found videos making the same false claims as the Tikok videos on YouTube. These videos mimicked the TikTok videos’ format: sensational headlines, Trump photos, audio that sounded AI-generated.

(Screengrabs from YouTube)

Most of the YouTube videos were viewed hundreds or thousands of times. The two YouTube accounts that posted the videos were created in 2021 and 2022 and amassed tens of thousands of followers before we contacted YouTube for comment and the company removed the accounts from the platform.

Before YouTube removed the videos, they were reshared on other social media platforms, including Facebook and X, where very small numbers of people liked or viewed them. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

A YouTube spokesperson did not provide comment for this story by our deadline.

How generative AI is contributing to more misinformation online

Misinformation experts say the newest generations of generative AI are making it easier for people to create and share misleading social media content. And AI-generated audio tends to be cheaper than its video counterparts.

“Now, anyone with access to the internet can have the power of thousands of writers, audio technicians and video producers, for free, and at the push of a button,” said Jack Brewster, enterprise editor at Newsguard, a company tracking online misinformation.

“In the right hands, that power can be used for good,” Brewster said. “In the wrong hands, that power can be used to pollute our information ecosystem, destabilize democracies and undermine public trust in institutions.”

NewsGuard reported in September 2023 that AI voice technology was being used to spread conspiracy theories en masse across TikTok. The report said Newsguard “identified a network of 17 TikTok accounts using AI text-to-speech software to generate videos advancing false and unsubstantiated claims, with hundreds of millions of views.”

A 2023 University of British Columbia study that used a dataset from TikTok found that AI text-to-speech technology simplified content creation, motivating content creators to produce more videos.

Study authors Xiaoke Zhang and Mi Zhou told PolitiFact that increased productivity means generative AI “can be deliberately exploited to generate misinformation at a low cost.”

The technology can also help users conceal their identities, which can “diminish their sense of responsibility towards ensuring information accuracy,” Zhang and Zhou said.

TikTok requires users to label content that contains AI-generated images, videos or audio “to help viewers contextualize the video and prevent the potential spread of misleading content.” TikTok’s community guidelines bar “inaccurate, misleading, or false content that may cause significant harm to individuals or society.”

No TikTok videos we reviewed had this generative AI label, although some included labels to learn more about U.S. elections. Brewster said NewsGuard also observed many TikTok users bypassing this policy about identifying AI-generated content.

YouTube’s community guidelines don’t allow “misleading or deceptive content that poses a serious risk of egregious harm.” YouTube requires disclosure for election advertising containing “digitally altered or generated materials.” The company said in December that it plans to expand this generative AI disclosure to other content.

How to detect AI-generated audio

Experts say existing AI detection tools are imperfect. They add that as detection tools improve, so does generative AI technology.

AI-generated audio lacks the more obvious visual cues of AI-generated images or videos, such as mouth movements that aren’t synced to audio or distorted physical features.

However, there are ways people can identify AI-generated audio.

Malik, the University of Michigan professor, said to listen for abnormalities in vocal tone, articulation or pacing.

“(AI-generated voices) lack emotions. They lack the rise and fall in the audio that you typically have when you talk,” Malik said. “They are pretty monotonic.”

Brewster also advised that the “old tactics” are still the best way to avoid AI-generated misinformation. Those include cross-checking information with other sites; being attuned to grammatical errors and odd phrasing; and searching for the names of those who posted to see if they have shared false information in the past.

RELATED: What is generative AI and why is it suddenly everywhere? Here’s how it works

RELATED: How generative AI could help foreign adversaries influence U.S. elections

Former President Donald Trump on March 8 posted a $91.6 million bond to cover the amount he owes writer E. Jean Carroll after a verdict in a civil defamation case, which he is appealing.

Social media users began speculating about who secured Trump’s bond and some of them baselessly suggested Russia helped.

“This is the company that bonded Trump. Anyone surprised?” read text on a March 10 Facebook post above a screenshot about the “Chubb Insurance Company of Russia,” which lists a Russian address and mentions a Moscow office.

Other social media posts also tied Trump’s bond to a Russia company, suggesting the bond poses national security concerns.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

PolitiFact traced the language in the Facebook post’s screenshot to an Association of European Businesses webpage about Chubb Insurance Co. LLC. The association describes itself as a nonprofit and the “main representative body of foreign investors in Russia.”

(Facebook screenshot)

Chubb is a global insurance company operating in 54 countries and territories worldwide, according to its website. It is based in Zurich, has offices in New York, London and Paris and employs about 40,000 people.

Chubb’s having businesses in Russia does not make it a Russian company. There is no connection between the government of Russia, Trump and Chubb, a Chubb company spokesperson told PolitiFact. 

Chubb stopped receiving revenue from its Russian operations after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Parent company Chubb Ltd. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is part of the S&P 500, its website said. Chubb has 44 branch offices across the U.S. A fourth-quarter report from Chubb said 59% of the company’s business comes from within the U.S.

Trump’s bond was secured by the Federal Insurance Co., which is part of Chubb. A jury in January awarded Carroll $83.3 million in a defamation lawsuit over Trump’s social media comments about her claims that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s. The bond amount is higher because Trump would also be charged interest.

Federal Insurance Co. is based in Indiana. A court document listed its company addresses in Virginia, where it has a claims center, and New Jersey, where it has a home office. Chubb’s Russian business was not listed.

Chubb’s U.S. history dates to 1792, when the Insurance Co. of North America was created in Philadelphia, according to a timeline on Chubb’s website. That company was acquired by ACE Ltd., which acquired Chubb in 2016, creating the global company that exists today. Chubb Corp. began in New York in 1882 as a maritime underwriting business, the timeline said.

A Chubb spokesperson told PolitiFact that before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the company had $200 billion in assets and an $85 billion market capitalization. (A market capitalization, or market cap, is a publicly traded company’s value; it’s derived by multiplying the total number of shares by the current share price.) 

Chubb’s Russian operations had a net asset value of $40 million before Russia’s Ukraine invasion, making Russia among its smallest markets.

After the invasion, the spokesperson said, Chubb stopped managing the Russian businesses and disconnected them from Chubb’s systems. Those businesses also stopped writing or renewing insurance policies. Chubb no longer receives revenue from those businesses and deconsolidated them from the company’s financial statements, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson provided a statement that said Chubb doesn’t comment on client-specific information. 

In a 2023 letter to shareholders, Chubb Ltd. CEO Evan Greenberg, who served on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations under Trump and President Joe Biden, criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, urging continued U.S. support for Ukraine to stave off “Russian aggression.”

Greenberg is facing criticism for his business’s decision to aid Trump. But Greenberg said in a March 13 letter to shareholders that he knows how “polarizing and emotional this case and the defendant are,” and that the company isn’t taking sides, just fulfilling its role in the legal system.

Our ruling

A Facebook post claimed a Russian company provided Trump’s bond in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

The U.S.-based Federal Insurance Co., a subsidiary of global insurance company Chubb, provided the bond. Chubb is headquartered in Zurich and operates in 54 countries and territories worldwide. Chubb has businesses in Russia, but after Russia invaded Ukraine, the company ceased managing or receiving revenue from them, a company spokesperson said.

We rate the claim False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

Physicist Albert Einstein is considered one of the most influential scientists in human history, but a social media post citing no proof proclaims he had a secret.

“Albert Einstein was a transgender,” the March 6 Facebook post said. “This has been going on for a very long time.” 

The video cites no source. Instead, what follows is a three-minute video in which photos of celebrities and other public figures, including some women whom the video labeled “male.”

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

“We are all being played, I’m telling you,” a voice could be heard saying in the video as images of Einstein are followed by images suggesting that actors Marilyn Monroe and Julia Roberts, former first lady Michelle Obama, and singer Beyoncé were born as males.

We did not find any evidence to back up the claim Einstein was transgender.

Rather, documents held by Princeton University show an English translation of Einstein’s 1879 birth certificate that discloses that “a child of the male sex was born, which was given the first name Albert.”

We’ve previously debunked numerous unfounded claims that Michelle Obama was a man. They’re wrong, and this claim about Einstein also lacks any corroboration.

 We rate this post Pants on Fire!