Social media posts seeking to discredit the judge who presided over former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in New York have been circulating online. Contrary to a popular meme, the judge’s wife works for a Republican district attorney, not the Democratic state attorney general, and his daughter was not personally paid by a high-profile Democrat.
A Michigan town clerk pleaded no contest in 2023 to a charge of misconduct in office. Social media posts misleadingly highlight her case to push the false narrative that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.” The clerk’s case was related to her local primary race, not the presidential election.
Republican Sen. Katie Britt has introduced a bill that would create a government website to help connect pregnant people with resources, excluding abortion services. Some Democrats and partisan websites have misleadingly claimed the proposed law would create a federal database of pregnant people. The bill doesn’t require users to provide any personal information.
A recent deal involving a prisoner swap and the extension of a Trump-era waiver have freed $16 billion in previously frozen Iranian funds. Social media posts distort the sources of the money to falsely claim “Joe Biden gave 16 billion to Iran.” The Iranian money has been unfrozen with restrictions that it be used for humanitarian purposes.
O.J. Simpson, a football star who was acquitted in the murder of his ex-wife and her friend, died of cancer on April 10 at age 76. Misinformation spread online within hours of the news. Social media posts falsely claimed that the cancer was related to his COVID-19 vaccination. Simpson was vaccinated, but there is no evidence that vaccination causes cancer or that it was to blame for his death.
A claim on social media misrepresents the number of people who have registered to vote in three states in 2024 and suggests the new voters are immigrants in the country illegally. There have been 194,000 newly registered voters in those states — not 2 million — and there’s no evidence they are immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
Both Easter and the Transgender Day of Visibility happened to fall on March 31 this year. President Joe Biden recognized both occasions, as he has done every year in office. But some social media posts and conservative politicians characterized his acknowledgement of Transgender Day of Visibility as “mocking” Easter and declaring “war” on Christianity.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump, has a net worth of about $2.7 million, her most recent financial disclosure statement shows. But social media posts baselessly claim she’s worth $15 million. The claim appears to come from a website that says it “cannot guarantee its accuracy.”
The Francis Scott Key Bridge near Baltimore collapsed after being hit by a cargo ship in the early morning on March 26. Although all evidence points to an accident, conspiracy theorists spread the baseless claim that it was intentionally caused by a “cyber-attack.” Officials have dismissed the claim.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, some stimulus checks were sent to people who had died. The issue was explained in government reports and the media when it happened in 2020. But a social media post has resurrected the issue and falsely claimed that it occurred during the Biden administration. It actually happened during the Trump administration.