Bill McCarthy

Professional wrestling legend Hulk Hogan supported US President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign, but an image that appears to show him posing with the American flag at the "Alligator Alcatraz" migrant detention center in the state of Florida is not authentic. It combines a 2014 portrait of the pop culture icon with an unrelated photo of migrants detained during Trump's first term in 2019.

White House remarks about Hitler and Stalin were faked

Social media users claim the train that spilled toxic chemicals in the US state of Ohio in February 2023 was intentionally derailed so the government could forcibly relocate rural Americans into “15-minute cities” and curtail their personal freedoms. This is false; the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said there is no evidence of foul play in the crash, and the 15-minute city urban planning concept is not aimed at restricting residents’ autonomy.

Social media users are claiming a video of a multi-story building collapsing shows destruction from an earthquake that ripped through Turkey and Syria on February 6, 2023. This is false; the video was captured in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and has circulated online since at least January.

Following Lisa Marie Presley’s death on January 12, 2023, anti-vaccine activists and other social media users claimed the American singer authored a lengthy Facebook post in 2022 about getting the Covid-19 vaccine. This is false; the screenshotted post shared online came not from the daughter of the legendary rock star Elvis Presley, but from an unrelated fashion stylist from Venezuela also named “Lisa Marie.”

Social media users are claiming a Fox News broadcast about Brittney Griner’s release from Russia included a photo showing the US women’s basketball star with a beard. But the picture has been digitally manipulated; the facial hair was added to an image captured in July 2022, and a spokesperson for t…

As luxury fashion house Balenciaga faces a backlash for ad campaigns that critics say condoned child exploitation, social media users claim a photo shows Russian-born stylist Lotta Volkova wearing a Satanic outfit while holding two baby dolls covered in red paint. This is false; the person pictured is not Volkova, her agent confirmed, but a runway model for designer Hu Sheguang at China Fashion Week in 2016.

Social media users are claiming a photo of a curly-haired man in a hooded sweatshirt is Anderson Lee Aldrich, who police accuse of opening fire on November 19, 2022 inside an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is false; the widely shared picture is of another man identified as the driver of a truck that fatally struck a girl during a holiday parade in North Carolina.