Category: Fact Check

  • Fact Check: Journalist who pleaded guilty to possession of child sexual abuse images did not debunk Pizzagate

    Billionaire Elon Musk promoted the controversial Pizzagate conspiracy theory on X, formerly Twitter. 

    Musk posted a meme Nov. 28 suggesting that Pizzagate is real because an expert who debunked the conspiracy theory was arrested for child pornography. Musk later deleted his post, but the meme was reshared on Facebook.

    That Facebook 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 Pizzagate conspiracy theory emerged in 2016 and claimed that Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democratic politicians were sexually trafficking children out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. It has been widely debunked and PolitiFact found no evidence to support the claim. 

    In a follow-up X post that Musk also deleted, the Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder shared a link to a story about former ABC News journalist James Gordon Meek pleading guilty to possessing and transporting child sexual abuse materials, The Associated Press reported.

    Meek was sentenced in September to six years in federal prison for transportation and possession of child sexual abuse images, according to The Associated Press.

    But we searched Meek’s bylines on ABC News’ website and in the Nexis news database and found no ABC News articles in which he debunked the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. He did mention Pizzagate once in a story about Russian propaganda in Syria. 

    The claim that Meek debunked Pizzagate seems to have originated from what appears to be a fake New York Post headline that read, “Award winning ABC journalist who ‘debunked’ Pizzagate, pleads guilty in horrific child porn case.” We searched the New York Post archives, Nexis news archives and Google and found no story with that or a similar headline. PolitiFact also reached out to the New York Post to confirm whether the headline was authentic, but did not immediately receive a response. 

    We rate the claim that a Pizzagate expert went to jail for child pornography False. 

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

     



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  • Fact Check: Video of Israeli police detaining Palestinian boy is from 2018, not current war

    A years-old video of Israeli Border Police officers briefly detaining a young Palestinian child is being used on social media to suggest it shows poor treatment of Palestinians by Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas.

    “Israeli occupation forces arrest a 2-year-old child,” read sticker text on a Nov. 26 Instagram video. The video shows a small child being held by two armed men while the boy screams for his father. A longer video posted on Instagram on Nov. 22 shows a man and another child intervening and taking the boy away.

    The post did not mention when the video was filmed. We found several other social media posts also sharing the video in the context of the current war in Gaza in late November.

    The Israel-Hamas war has been deadly for children. More than 6,000 children have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. Dozens of Israeli children were killed or taken hostage by Hamas when militants attacked Israel Oct. 7.

    However, this video is from 2018 and is not related to the current war between Israel and Hamas, nor does it show the full context of what transpired.

    The 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.)

    (Instagram screenshot)

    Using a screenshot from the video in a reverse image search, we traced it to news reports about a March 2018 incident in Hebron in the West Bank.

    Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported that Israeli Border Police officers briefly detained a 3-year-old Palestinian boy who police said was sent to throw stones at them. Police said the boy ran at the officers with a screwdriver and a peeler in his hands.

    Video of incident in Hebron in 2018 (Israel Border Police via Haaretz)

    Police released a longer security camera video that showed the boy approaching soldiers on the street, then running away. Later, he returned and ran back at the soldiers before one of them grabbed him. The video was filmed from too far away to see if the boy had anything in his hands. A witness told Haaretz the boy had a “gourd scraper” in his hand.

    We rate the claim that this video portrays the ongoing Israel-Hamas war False.

    PolitiFact news researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. 



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  • Fact Check: Did you miss explosive news? No. This volcano erupted last year, not recently

    A video claiming earth-shattering news is spreading across social media.

    “8 MINUTES AGO! The largest underwater volcano has SUDDENLY CRACKED OPEN the Earth!” read the caption on the Nov. 27 Facebook post, which had been viewed more than 47,000 times when this story was published.

    The 15-minute video discusses in detail the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the South Pacific. We could not find definitive information about whether it is the largest underwater volcano, but its eruption was historic.

    But this magma isn’t piping hot, it’s old (and cold) news.

    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 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022. The eruption was record-breaking, earning the title of the biggest atmospheric explosion ever recorded, according to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

    The explosions were devastating for the nearby Tonga islands, and caused tsunamis to ripple out across the Pacific Ocean. Geoscientist Sam Purkis told The Washington Post that the eruption’s power compared to that of a hydrogen bomb. 

    Concerns linger about the explosion’s impact on the climate because of the amount of water vapor released into the atmosphere. According to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it was enough water to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. There are also signs that the eruption depleted the ozone layer, according to a 2023 study.

    But claims that this eruption happened Nov. 27 are out of date. We rate the claim that the largest underwater volcano recently erupted False.



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  • Fact Check: Fact-checking Newsom-DeSantis debate: Immigration, abortion, book bans and a poop map

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom challenged each other’s records on immigration, crime, COVID-19 lockdowns, the economy and social issues in a rowdy Fox News matchup billed as “The Great Red versus Blue State Debate.”

    DeSantis is among the Republicans running behind former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. Newsom, a Democrat, is not running for president — though he could be a future contender — and defended President Joe Biden’s record.

    The governors cherry-picked favorable data and talked over each other as moderator Sean Hannity flipped through topics. Newsom was telling “a lot of whoppers,” said DeSantis, whose props included a purported map of feces in San Francisco. (We fact-checked it at the end.)

    “I can’t wait to get all the PolitiFacts tonight,” Newsom said as they feuded over student learning.

    Here are our fact-checks from their showdown.

    Migration

    DeSantis and Newsom went back and forth discussing their states’ population gains and losses. 

    “He’s the first governor to ever lose population,” said DeSantis. “They actually at one point ran out of U-Hauls in the state of California because so many people were leaving.”

    California’s population declined for the first time ever in 2020, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. It’s been declining since then. (Newsom became governor in 2019). After the 2020 Census, California lost a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in its history.

    In January 2022, U-Haul said that it ran out of one-way trucks and trailers in California at the start of 2021. This was a result of the large demand of people moving out of California in 2020, leaving fewer trucks, a U-Haul spokesperson told The Sacramento Bee.

    Newsom countered that there have been “more Floridians coming to California than the other way around in the last two years.”

    If measuring per capita, Newsom is right that more Floridians have moved to California than the other way around in the last two years, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. But the difference is so small that experts have questioned whether it is meaningful.

    In 2022, 1.32 per 1,000 Floridians moved to California, and 1.31 per 1,000 Californians moved to Florida.

    In raw numbers, more Californians moved to Florida than the other way around. But this does not account for California’s higher population.

    A 2023 poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 45% of Californians who considered moving to another state cited housing costs as a factor. 

    COVID-19 lockdowns

    Newsom borrowed a page from former President Donald Trump’s playbook by misleadingly portraying DeSantis as a lockdown leader. Newsom’s comments focused on DeSantis’ actions in the pandemic’s first few weeks, when nearly all governors operated in lockstep. Newsom omits that DeSantis reopen earlier than most governors in the spring of 2020.

    “You passed an emergency declaration before the state of California did,” Newsom said. “You closed down your beaches, your bars, your restaurants. It is a fact.”

    Many local governments closed beaches for a limited time, but DeSantis did not close them statewide. 

    DeSantis issued an executive order on March 17, 2020, directing Floridians to “limit their gatherings” at beaches to no more than 10 people and to “support beach closures at the discretion of local authorities.”

    He also ordered beaches in Broward and Palm Beach counties to close for 11 days, following recommendations from local officials and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The governor’s refusal to close most beaches to spring break crowds drew heavy criticism and litigation. 

    Newsom was on firmer ground in his claim about closing bars. DeSantis ordered all bars and nightclubs closed for 30 days. Restaurants did not close. His March 17 order said restaurants were limited to 50% customer capacity and had to separate seating by 6 feet.

    Governors nationwide issued multiple orders in March 2020 in response to the pandemic. DeSantis issued an order March 1 to establish COVID-19 response protocol and direct a public health emergency. On March 4, Newsom declared a state of emergency to help California prepare for COVID-19. 


    California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks Nov. 9, 2023 during a Clean California event in San Francisco. (AP)

    Book bans in Florida

    When Hannity asked DeSantis about the Florida bill criticized as “don’t say gay,” DeSantis held up a page from the graphic memoir “Gender Queer,” with black markings over private parts. Many Florida school districts have banned the book.

    Newsom said Florida had been on a “book-banning binge” under DeSantis: “One thousand four hundred and six books have been banned just last year under Ron DeSantis’ leadership.” DeSantis replied that it was a “false narrative.”

    This stems from one group’s count and does not represent 1,406 books banned statewide. 

    PEN America, a group that opposes book bans, recorded 1,406 book ban cases in Florida across about half of the state’s school districts. PEN America’s definition of a ban is more expansive than those of other groups. The organization records a book ban whenever access to a previously available book is removed or restricted — temporarily or permanently — because of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions or direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials. Books that are removed temporarily may not return to shelves for months. 

    New Florida laws made it easier for parents to object to books, resulting in more school districts banning books in the past couple of years. 

    A September Florida Department of Education report shows 20 of Florida’s 67 school districts and the statewide public Florida Virtual School removed 298 books in the 2022-23 school year. Some of those books were banned in multiple districts. Overall, school district officials received 1,218 objections about books.

    Many of the objections were for books containing sexual or LGBTQ+ content and came from a small group of parents, some affiliated with conservative groups, such as Moms for Liberty, a Tampa Bay Times analysis found.

    Prompted by Hannity to say whether the bans were state or local, DeSantis said they were “local.” That disguises state policy’s influence on local choices.

    Newsom also said, “What’s wrong with Amanda Gorman’s poetry?” suggesting it was banned. A parent at a South Florida school challenged Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb,” which Gorman performed at Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. After a review, the K-through-eighth grade school moved the book to the library’s middle school section. It was not banned at the school, much less by the district or the state.

    Tax policy 

    The governors sparred about taxes, with DeSantis asking how many people leave Florida for California because that state has a lower tax burden. “They come to Florida because they pay lower taxes,” DeSantis said.

    But Newsom said Florida “taxes low-income workers more than we tax millionaires and billionaires in the state of California.”

    Newsom has a point, although the two states have such different tax systems that it’s tricky to compare them. For instance, Florida has no income tax, but California does.

    Among the 50 states, Florida has the nation’s 11th-lowest overall tax burden, while California has the fifth-highest, according to annual rankings by the Tax Foundation, a think tank that advocates for lower taxes.

    But the overall tax burden doesn’t address differences between workers’ share of taxes.

    A study by the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy examined whether state tax systems rely on higher-income taxpayers (progressive) or lower-income taxpayers (regressive). Newsom’s office said this is the study he referred to. The data, though, is from 2018. 

    It found that in California, the top 1% of households for incomes paid 12.4% of their income in state and local taxes. By comparison, in Florida, households in the bottom 20% of incomes paid 12.7% of their income in state and local taxes. By this metric, Newsom is correct. 

    Comparing the tax burden for the lowest 20% of households in income, California also has lower taxes. In California, households in the bottom 20% paid 10.5% of their income in taxes, compared with Florida’s 12.7%.

    Meanwhile, wealthy taxpayers came out ahead in Florida, where the tax burden for the top 1% was 2.3% of income. That’s far lower than the 12.4% rate for California millionaires.

    Florida’s crime rate 

    As DeSantis described a conversation with Newsom’s father-in-law, who moved to Florida, he claimed Florida was experiencing a “50-year low” in the crime rate. Newsom said DeSantis’ “own law enforcement” said the data shouldn’t be used.

    What used to be an easy talking point about Florida’s declining crime became controversial this year after the agency changed how it reported its crime rate. 

    NBC News reported Sept. 20 that DeSantis’ talking point came from a database with information from law enforcement agencies representing about 57% of Florida’s population. The story quoted three unnamed former Florida Department of Law Enforcement staff members who said they had warned top officials against using the “50-year low” claim, because it was impossible to verify.
    Florida’s transitioned to incident-based crime reporting, the new federal standard, rather than the summary-based reports it has used since the 1970s. With summary reporting, if one incident resulted in multiple crimes, only the most serious crimes would be reported. In 2021, the federal government stopped accepting this type of data and now requires states to report each crime.  

    The Florida Department of Law Enforcement told PolitiFact in September that the 50-year low statistic still holds after additional agencies submitted data, representing around 75% of the population. 

    The FBI’s crime reporting database shows that 49 of 757 Florida law enforcement agencies participated in the FBI’s data collection in 2021. By contrast, in 2022, 367 Florida law enforcement agencies sent in data.

    Florida’s abortion limits and DeSantis’ abortion survivor story

    As Hannity pressed Newsom on whether he supported any abortion restrictions, Newsom attacked Florida’s abortion laws. 

    “He signed a bill banning any exceptions for rape and incest,” Newsom said of DeSantis. “And then he said it didn’t go far enough and decided to sign a six-week ban … that criminalizes women and criminalizes doctors.” 

    DeSantis signed legislation in 2022 that outlawed abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It does not make exceptions for cases of incest, rape or human trafficking but includes an exception for the mother’s life.

    DeSantis signed a stricter bill in April that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Whether the law takes effect hinges on how the Florida Supreme Court rules in a lawsuit against the current 15-week ban. The 2023 law does contain exceptions, including to save the woman’s life or in cases of fatal fetal anomalies. Abortions for pregnancies involving rape, incest or human trafficking would be allowed until 15 weeks of pregnancy if a woman has documentation, such as a restraining order, police report or medical record. 

    The law penalizes physicians, but whether it also criminalizes women is less clear, so we have rated a similar claim Half True. The law says that anyone who “actively participates in” an abortion commits a third-degree felony, which opens the door to prosecutors charging women, but we don’t yet know whether they will or how courts would respond to such charges. DeSantis has also said that he doesn’t want women prosecuted, only doctors. 

    Defending the law, DeSantis repeated an anecdote from the first GOP presidential debate about a Floridian named Penny Hopper. Hopper is a real person, and an anti-abortion activist. Some of the details about her birth story have been called into question. 

    Hopper said she survived an abortion attempt in Florida in 1955.  Her claim has been featured by anti-abortion groups and used to support “born alive” bills in state legislatures, which aim to protect infants who survive abortions, even though there are federal laws for that purpose. 

    In a video and in interviews, Hopper said she had been delivered around 23 weeks gestation after her mother went to a hospital in Wauchula, Florida, while experiencing bleeding. Hopper said the doctor induced labor, and she was born at 1 pound, 11 ounces, and that the doctor told staff to discard her “dead or alive.” She said her grandmother found her the next day on the hospital porch in a bedpan. Then, Hopper said, a nurse volunteered to take her to a larger hospital that was about 40 miles away.

    That a baby born at 23 weeks could survive overnight without medical attention in 1955 is medically dubious, experts said. From the 1950s through 1980, “newborn death was virtually ensured” for infants born at or before 24 weeks of gestation, The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology says on its website. 

    The Washington Post also reported that contemporaneous newspaper accounts offer a different scenario at the hospital, and said the staff spent days keeping her alive before arranging a police escort to rush her to another hospital.


    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks Nov. 8, 2023, during a Republican presidential primary debate in Miami. (AP)

    Literacy rates and learning loss

    DeSantis and Newsom each said their state handled education better during the pandemic.

    DeSantis said that in the most recent results of a widely tracked standardized test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, “Florida came in No. 3 for fourth grade reading. California was far, far behind.”

    This is accurate. Florida ranked third among states for fourth grade reading, after Massachusetts and Wyoming. California ranked 32nd.

    On eighth grade reading, Florida ranked 21st, but still led California, which ranked 29th.

    Newsom, meanwhile, said, “Ron DeSantis had more learning loss during COVID” in Florida than he had in California. 

    Measuring learning loss is complicated and varies by academic subject and age. But one study that tried to quantify how much students backslid overall during the pandemic supports Newsom’s statement.

    In January 2023, McKinsey & Co., a consulting company, released a study of how National Assessment of Educational Progress results changed in each state from 2019 to 2022. 

    In the study, a 4-point drop in scores on the test was estimated to have produced 12 weeks of learning delay. Learning loss varied widely by state, with Hawaii and Alabama experiencing four weeks of loss and Delaware experiencing 32 weeks.

    The study found that California students lost an average of nine weeks, compared with 12 weeks for Florida. That put California slightly below the 12-week national average and Florida slightly above it.

    DeSantis criticized California for having “one of the lowest literacy rates in the country.” He is correct — but he ignored that Florida’s literacy rate is nearly as low.

    The federal Education Department uses a few metrics to measure literacy. The most comprehensive, calculated by modeling several measurements of literacy, has a fairly narrow range, from 252 (the lowest, for Louisiana) to 279 (the highest, for New Hampshire). 

    California has the sixth-lowest score of any state (257). But Florida has the ninth-lowest score at 259.

    Violent crime statistics

    Hannity said California’s levels of violent crime are “way higher than the national average.” He showed a graphic with 2022 violent crime rates, based on FBI data. California had the highest rate, with 499.5 violent crimes per 100,000 people. The national average was 380.7 per 100,000, and Florida’s was 258.9 per 100,000. We checked the numbers in the graphic and found they were accurate.

    Newsom pushed back on this narrative by focusing on one category of violent crime: murders. The other types of violent crime include forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. 

    “Seven of the top 10 murder rates in the United States of America are red states,” Newsom said.

    Newsom is right, based on the voting patterns in the 2020 presidential election and 2020 state-by-state homicide rankings, according to an analysis of federal data by Third Way, a center-left policy group.

    In descending order, the top 10 states for homicide rates were Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Maryland and Georgia. The first seven on that list all supported Trump in the 2020 election; the final three supported President Joe Biden. The analysis also found that “solidly red states have dominated the top 10 murder rate states for the past decade” or more.

    Newsom also said that Florida “has a 66% higher gun death rate than the state of California.”

    This is close. According to 2020 federal data, Florida’s gun death rate was 14.1 per 100,000 residents, compared with 9.0 per 100,000 in California. That’s 57% higher for Florida.

    However, both governors can point to other statistics to bolster their case as the safer locale.

    • California’s overall homicide rate of 5.7 per 100,000 people was higher than Florida’s rate of 5.0 per 100,000. Both states rank below the national rate of 6.3. 

    • Florida’s gun homicide rate, 5.87 per 100,000, was higher than California’s, 4.65.

    Americans in Israel

    DeSantis did not tell the full story of how the Biden administration evacuated Americans from Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

    “Biden stranded a lot of American citizens over there who were trying to get home,” DeSantis said. “So, I did an executive order in Florida, and we sent planes over Israel right in the aftermath of Oct. 7, and we saved over 700 Americans, mostly Floridians, but not all, because Biden wouldn’t do it.” 

    About 700 Americans flew to Florida on four flights from Israel, DeSantis’ office said. The flights were free for passengers.

    But the Biden administration also brought Americans home. It offered 6,900 seats to Americans in Israel seeking to depart by air, land or sea. As of Oct. 31, about 1,500 U.S. citizens and their family members had departed using federal government transport, a State Department spokesperson previously told PolitiFact. 

    The first flight landed in Athens, Greece. News reports said that the State Department flew Americans to European cities where they could book flights to the U.S. on commercial airlines. Florida officials offered to transport Americans who were in Athens to the U.S.

    Per long-standing federal law and policy, the government seeks reimbursement from citizens for the cost of transportation.

    Squabbling over Special Olympics

    DeSantis and Newsom sparred over how the other treated the Special Olympics. Newsom said it was “disgraceful” that DeSantis threatened to fine the Special Olympics $27 million. 

    DeSantis fired back that Newsom “wanted the athletes marginalized.”

    What were they talking about?

    In June 2022, ahead of a planned Special Olympics event in Orlando, the Florida Department of Health told the organization that its vaccine requirement conflicted with state law barring any business from asking for proof of COVID-19 vaccination. After Florida threatened to fine the Special Olympics $27 million, the organization eliminated its vaccine requirement.

    Florida’s action prompted “an emotional response” for Newsom, he told the Sacramento Bee. He tweeted: “Ron DeSantis’ values on full display: Bullying. The. Special. Olympics.” 

    In response, DeSantis emphasized how lifting the vaccine requirement enabled some participants to participate in the games even though health concerns prevented them from getting vaccinated. He cited participants such as Isabella Valle, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and a shunt in her brain. 

    Both governors have ties to the Special Olympics. Newsom headed the leadership committee for the Special Olympics’ World Games in Los Angeles in 2015, and his mother helped families adopt children with disabilities, the Bee reported.

    DeSantis and his wife, Casey were honorary co-chairs of the 2022 Special Olympics.

    Mapping human feces in San Francisco

    During a conversation about homelessness, DeSantis pulled out a sheet of paper from his suit jacket and revealed a map of San Francisco filled with brown and black pinpoint icons. 

    “Well, this is an app where they plot the human feces that are found on the streets of San Francisco,” said DeSantis. “And you see how almost the whole thing is covered? Because that is what has happened in one of the previous greatest cities this country’s ever had. Human feces is now a fact of life.”

    DeSantis’ map comes from Open the Books, a nonprofit government watchdog. But what DeSantis pointed to isn’t current.

    The map plotted public reports of human feces found in San Francisco from 2011 to 2019. (More than 118,000 people reported their findings to San Francisco’s nonemergency line.)

    Newsom was San Francisco mayor from 2004 to 2011 and was California’s lieutenant governor from 2011 to 2019.

    Open the Books does not seem to have a map of current data. But there is another map created by two Los Angeles teachers, showing reports from July 2019 to July 2020. That map has fewer data points than the visual DeSantis offered.

    RELATED: The Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom economies, in 8 charts



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  • Fact Check: John D. Rockefeller did not write a ‘secret covenant’ about world domination

    Facebook users have resurfaced a conspiracy theory about John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Co. and the world’s first billionaire. 

    A Facebook reel shared 22,000 times claims that Rockefeller wrote what the post describes as a “secret covenant” about controlling the world’s population. In the video, a voice-over says, “We will make them kill each other when it suits us. We will keep them separated from the oneness by dogma and religion. We will control all aspects of their lives and tell them when to think and how.” 

    That Facebook reel 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.)

    Rockefeller lived from 1839 to 1937 and became one of the world’s first billionaires after creating the Standard Oil Company. He and his family are frequent targets of conspiracy theories. 

    In 2020, Snopes found that the text from Rockefeller’s alleged secret covenant was posted in 2002 by an anonymous author with the title “The Secret Covenant” to BankIndex.com, a website that provided financial information and a platform for businesses to sell their products. 

    The website also had a news section where conspiracy theories were posted. A disclaimer was posted under the “Secret Covenant” article saying that the editorial staff does not know the author’s identity and that the piece was submitted through a form on which the author left an unusable email address. 

    We searched key phrases from the secret covenant on Google Search, Nexis biographies and intellectual property and RE: Source, a Rockefeller Archive Center publication, and couldn’t find any evidence connecting Rockefeller to the covenant. PolitiFact emailed the Rockefeller Archive Center for comment, but did not immediately receive a response. 

    We rate the claim that Rockefeller wrote a secret covenant detailing plans for world domination False.



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  • Fact Check: Homeless people in San Francisco didn’t go missing, they were moved into shelters and other areas

    San Francisco is struggling with a homelessness problem, with tents and encampments in the city’s downtown areas. But in mid-November, when those areas were cleaned up, some social media posts made it seem like an ominous development.

    One Nov. 22 Facebook post sharing a TikTok video suggests that homeless people went missing because the city was hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which  ran Nov. 11 to Nov. 17. World leaders such as President Joe Biden, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and China’s President Xi Jinping were among the estimated 20,000 people expected to attend.

    “Evidently, people were driving around and they were getting asked to get in white vans and these people are never seen from again,” an unidentified man in the video said. “There is some wild stuff going on and be careful how deep you dig on this y’all because you may not like the answers that you find.” As the man spoke, eerie music played in the background.  

    The video 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.)

    Other videos making similar claims have also been shared on TikTok.

    San Francisco and California officials moved homeless people out of some city areas, but there was nothing mysterious about it — they were moved elsewhere in the city and, in some cases, offered shelter. The Department of Homeland Security declared the summit a National Special Security Event, which led to restricted access to areas around the Moscone Center and the waterfront.

    “When our community hosts events, like APEC, we want to put our best foot forward,” San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said in a statement to public radio and television station KQED. “Dedicated outreach efforts will be focused on the conference vicinity and offering safe places for people experiencing homelessness will be a priority.”

    San Francisco Mayor London Breed addressed concerns that the cleanup was a temporary fix to spruce up the city for visiting dignitaries.

    “Our goal is always to provide support, to provide compassion, but to not let people linger on our streets, especially when we are offering them an opportunity for housing,” Breed told Bloomberg News.

    News organizations including the San Francisco Standard, an online outlet, captured before and after photos of main streets from which homeless encampments had been removed.

    “Approximately a month before APEC began, there was intentional engagement with the city and people experiencing homelessness in South of Market,” a city neighborhood, said Terry Giovannini, chief program officer at St. Anthony’s Foundation, a nonprofit that supports homeless people. “Many of those folks did come to the Tenderloin (neighborhood) and they were telling us that they were given options for shelter,” Giovanni told ABC7 News.

    Javier Bremond, human rights organizer with the San Francisco advocacy group Coalition on Homelessness, told the San Jose Mercury News, a newspaper, that people also moved themselves to alleys and under a freeway.

    We rate the claim that homeless people mysteriously went missing in San Francisco False.

     



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  • Fact Check: Evidence lacking for ‘crisis actor’ claims about Palestinian in Gaza TV footage

    A Palestinian social media influencer with a wide audience has been posting videos about the war in Gaza, including of the Israeli military’s raid of al-Shifa hospital. Saleh Aljafarawi has tens of thousands of followers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube; he is not a journalist, but TV channels including MSNBC, the BBC and Al Jazeera have aired some of his footage from the conflict, and Al Jazeera labeled him a “journalist” in its clip. 

    A broadcaster for the conservative channel Newsmax TV, Rob Schmitt, cast doubt on Aljafarawi’s legitimacy in a Nov. 10 segment that called out MSNBC. 

    “With fake blood in his hands, it’s this guy right here,” Schmitt said. “Does MSNBC not pay attention to anything? This guy is everywhere, he’s a crisis actor. He’s at every possible crisis they have. He gets paid by Hamas and MSNBC puts him on TV, what a joke.” 

    The Newsmax chyron read, “MSNBC airs Gaza ‘Crisis Actor.’” An Instagram user shared Schmitt’s clip, which contains sensitive content. It 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’s review of Aljafarawi’s social media accounts and background did not reveal evidence of him being a “crisis actor” or faking the scene at the hospital. 

    It’s not the first time we’ve seen the “crisis actor” phrase used against people in Gaza. 

    We have also fact-checked claims that Israeli children on CNN were “crisis actors” after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

    Israel’s X account called Aljafarawi a “crisis actor.” Aljafarawi has talked of Israel as “occupiers,” accused Israeli airstrikes of targeting women and children, and celebrated the firing of rockets toward Israel, saying “God is most great,” in Arabic. 

    PolitiFact asked Newsmax for comment but received no answer. We also contacted MSNBC and Aljafarawi but did not hear back.

    Aljafarawi’s original video on Nov. 10 shows Aljafarawi with blood on his hands, running around the facility. He shows a broken ceiling with a hole, and then a little girl who also has blood on her hands and face. The caption of the post, originally in Arabic, said, “They bombarded the hospital,” according to Instagram’s automatic translation. (His video has been removed; an archived (and graphic) version is here.)

    MSNBC journalist Chris Jansing played Aljafarawi’s clip Nov. 10 and translated his report as, “We carried them with our hands. Our hands. They bombed them, bombed them, inside the hospital. Oh god, oh god, please god, have mercy on us.” 

    Schmitt in the Newsmax segment also shows a composite of photos that people who claim that Aljafarawi is an actor have spread. 

    The images try to show Aljafarawi in different roles, such as a “freedom fighter,” “blood donor” and “war correspondent.” But several of the photos do not show him at all, and others were taken from his social media accounts out of context.

    The “revived corpse” photo does not show Aljafarawi; it’s of a kid in a Halloween costume posted October 2022 to Facebook by a woman in Thailand, The Associated Press reported. 

    Collage circulating on social media that claims Aljafarawi is a “crisis actor”.

    Another image of Aljafarawi as a “resilient patient” had been on TikTok since at least August. The AP reported that the image, taken from a video of an injured teen in a hospital bed, dates to August and does not show Aljafarawi.

    The “freedom fighter” image of Aljafarawi with a gun was taken from a music video that was deleted a few weeks ago. In the music video, he was posing as a singing Hamas fighter.

    The other photos of him as a “foster father,” “tour guide” and as an “American idol” are from his social media accounts, in which he describes himself as a 26-year-old Palestinian living in Gaza. Before the Israel-Hamas war started after Hamas attacked sites in southern Israel Oct. 7 attack, Aljafarawi was already a social media influencer, but his content was mostly footage of his travels or music videos. He also posts videos of himself reciting passages from the Quran.

    We rate the Newsmax segment’s claim that MSNBC aired a Gaza “crisis actor” False.



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  • Fact Check: Ho, ho, ho? No, no, no. Facebook post promises $5,000 cash but connects with loan providers

    It seemed like the perfect offer for the holiday season, introduced by a smiling woman in a pink, red and green, snowflake-dotted “Merry Christmas” sweater. 

    “This is crazy,” the woman in the Nov. 15 Facebook video said. “I just got $5,000 financial help. Let me show you how you can do it too. OK, check this out: $5,000 in cash from AmericanEmergencyFund.com.” The text from the post author says, “BREAKING: Brand new financial relief program available for Americans.”

    The woman claimed the website is for Americans who need money for “emergency expenses like bills.” 

    “I’ve used it like three times and it has already came in clutch for the holiday season in order for me to get gifts,” she said, before encouraging people to go to the website. “You just fill out this form online, which only took like two minutes — oh, and it’s 100% free. The cool thing is they don’t really care about your credit score.”

    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.)

    (Screenshot from Facebook.)

    Like most online promises of fast cash, the post’s claim is misleading. The post links to a form, but doesn’t reveal a special financial relief program. Filling out the form won’t guarantee you $5,000 — at best, it might connect you with lenders who could lend money you’ll have to pay back, with interest. 

    We followed the link, which took us to a site that matched the website the woman showed on her phone in the video. But a disclaimer at the very bottom of the page says the site will connect users with personal lenders. 

    “The website collects personal information provided by you and forwards it to partners in our lender network,” it said.

    In a frequently asked questions section, American Emergency Fund answered a query on fees by saying: “americanemergencyfund services will always be provided free of charge, but that is not to say that the lender will give you a loan for free. Your lender will charge you fees and/or interest and must provide you with full disclosure of their loan terms upon approval. It is then your responsibility to read through the terms before signing your loan agreement.”

    When we selected the $5,000 the Facebook post promised and completed the form using information for a fictional John Doe, we were asked to provide sensitive personal information. 

    (Screenshots from AmericanEmergencyFund.com)

    About three-quarters of the way through the process, the site requested a Social Security number. Then, at the final step, after it said, “We found lenders!” it asked for a bank account number. In the end, the site redirected us to a debt management website. 

    Jay Mayfield, a Federal Trade Commission spokesperson, didn’t comment on the specific Facebook post we fact-checked, but encouraged people to use caution when sharing information online.

    “Consumers should be very wary about providing highly sensitive personal information online, especially if they have arrived on a website by clicking on a social media ad or a link in a text message or unsolicited email,” Mayfield said. “The risk of identity theft and other forms of fraud are very high in these situations.” 

    We rate the claim that a “brand new financial relief program available for Americans” provides $5,000 in cash False. 



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  • Fact Check: AdWatch: DeSantis Super PAC ad misleadingly edits Nikki Haley’s comments about Hillary Clinton

    An ad airing in Iowa wants Republican voters to think that Nikki Haley is a big fan of Hillary Clinton.

    “We know her as ‘Crooked Hillary,’ but to Nikki Haley, she’s her role model,” a narrator says.

    The 30-second ad by Fight Right, a super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign, shows five clips of Haley talking favorably about Clinton. On-screen text flashes, warning Haley is “not who she says she is.” However, the political action committee’s ad splices clips of Haley’s interviews and omits the full context.

    Haley often recounts the story of how she entered politics. She says when she told people she wanted to run for the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2004, people gave her an array of reasons why she shouldn’t run. And it was Clinton’s speech in 2003 at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, that made her change her mind. According to Haley, Clinton said the reasons people say you shouldn’t do something are the very reasons you should.  

    The ad’s clips show Haley crediting Clinton for her decision to enter politics. It doesn’t show key phrases in which Haley said that she disagrees ideologically with Clinton’s political views. 

    A Fight Right spokesperson pointed us to a 2012 interview Haley did with The New York Times in which Haley recounted the Clinton speech and her reaction to it.

    Here is a close look at the full context of the clips in the Fight Right ad. 

    Ad splices Haley’s comments about Clinton

    Ad: “I often say that the reason I got into politics was because of Hillary Clinton.”

    Context: This clip cuts the middle portion of Haley’s comments at an American University forum in July 2020. Starting at the timestamp, 41:17, the moderator asked Haley about her reflections on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, which had several women candidates.

    Haley’s full comment: “You know I often say that the reason that I got into politics — believe it or not, I don’t agree with anything that she has to say — but was because of Hillary Clinton. I was at a Furman Institute event for women. And she was the one that said, for all the reasons people tell you you shouldn’t run, those are the reasons you should. And I walked out of there and decided to run for the state house.”

    Ad: “Hillary Clinton is actually the reason.”

    Ad: “She is actually the reason that I made the jump.”

    Context: These two clips are shown separately in the ad. However, they are part of the same sentence during a November 2019 conversation with Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. 

    Haley’s full comment: “And interestingly enough, I went to a women’s leadership event at Furman University and Hillary Clinton was there. And she happened to say, ‘For all the reasons people tell you not to do it, that’s exactly the reason that you should.’ So, Hillary Clinton is actually the reason. I may not agree with her on a lot of things, but she’s actually the reason that I made the jump.”

    Ad: “She said, ‘And that’s the reason you absolutely have to.’ And I walked out of there and I said, ‘I’m running for office.’”

    Context: This is part of an April 2012 NBC interview. The ad makes it sound as if Clinton specifically told Haley to run. But that’s not so; Haley was recounting what Clinton said during the keynote speech. 

    Haley’s full comment: “She said to a few hundred people, ‘There are gonna be tons of reasons why people tell you you can’t do something,’ and she said, ‘And that’s the reason you absolutely have to.’ And I walked out of there and I said, ‘I’m running for office.’”

    Ad: A journalist says to Haley: “You write about her being a big inspiration for you in terms of a leader.”

    Context: This comes from the same 2012 NBC interview. However, the ad splices together two separate comments from David Gregory, then the host of NBC’s “Meet The Press,” and cuts out Haley’s comments in between. 

    Gregory’s full comment: “And I have to ask you about the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Because you write about her being a big inspiration for you. Talk about that.”

    Haley tells Gregory about hearing Clinton speak after being told all the reasons she shouldn’t run for office. That’s when Gregory says the last phrase in the ad’s clip. 

    Gregory’s full comment: “So she was an inspiration, maybe not ideologically, but certainly in terms of a leader.”

    Haley nodded in agreement as Gregory spoke, and said Clinton was, “A strong woman that understood that people are quick to say, ‘No you can’t,’ and that’s all the more reason why you have to push through it.”

    Haley’s campaign countered, saying the ad lied about her record

    Haley’s campaign published a response video titled, “Desperate Campaigns Do Desperate Things.” The video includes the full clip of Haley’s comments in the 2020 forum and three other clips of Haley criticizing Clinton during the 2016 election.

    “I don’t have a single policy that I think I agree with Hillary Clinton on,” Haley says in a clip from a 2015 interview. 

    Haley was critical of Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. However, she said she would vote for him because Clinton would be worse. Haley went on to serve as United Nations ambassador during Trump’s presidential administration.

    Our ruling

    An ad from pro-DeSantis super PAC, The Fight Right Inc., claims that clips of Haley speaking about Clinton shows Haley supports Clinton and is “not who she says she is.”

    But the ad misleadingly edits Haley’s comments to remove the many times Haley distinguished herself from Clinton’s politics.

    Haley has repeatedly said that she attended a 2003 event during which Clinton’s keynote remarks encouraging women to run for office inspired her to run for statewide office.

    But in Haley’s full comments, which are omitted in the ad, Haley said she disagrees with Clinton’s political views — a stance she has repeated numerous times. We find no examples of Haley ever endorsing Clinton’s political views or adopting them as her own.

    We rate this claim False.



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  • Fact Check: Don’t fall for this scam: the U.S. isn’t giving everyone $6,400

    With the holiday shopping season in full swing, social media posts are claiming the United States is sending everyone thousands of dollars with no strings attached.

    But don’t load your shopping cart just yet — this is a scam.

    A Nov. 16 Facebook video showed people celebrating and displaying phone screens showing hefty sums in bank accounts. The caption read, “The secret free $6,400 you can get right now!”

    “The U.S. is sending everyone a free $6,400 right now. You get this payout in under 48 hours and it’s completely free,” the video’s narrator said. “Hit that ATM up, get that car you want, take your wifey on a shopping spree or just save it.”

    (Screengrab from Facebook)

    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.)

    Misleading posts promising free and fast money are common on social media platforms. PolitiFact has debunked similar claims in the past.

    The Facebook post says to receive the free $6,400, people can click the link below the video that leads to “an official U.S. website,” answer two questions and talk to a representative.

    However, the link leads to a webpage with the URL “carerewardsplus.com” that’s not affiliated with the U.S. government. The site says “not found.” When we typed in another URL that’s displayed on the post, advantagecareplans.com, we were redirected to carerewardsplus.com. 

    We searched and did not find any news articles or U.S. government announcements about a $6,400 giveaway.

    The federal government warns that offers of free money or grants from the government are often scams. Government-funded financial assistance programs are only offered through official government websites.

    The Federal Trade Commission’s website offers tips on how to avoid these scams and where to report them.

    PolitiFact found no evidence the U.S. is sending everyone $6,400 payments. We rate this claim False.



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