FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on the social media network. We provide several resources for readers: a guide on how to flag suspicious stories on Facebook and a list of websites that have carried false or satirical articles, as well as a video and story on how to spot false stories.
Monkeypox is a viral disease that spreads through close physical contact with an infected person and large respiratory droplets that don’t travel more than a few feet. A recent meme on social media gets the facts wrong about how the virus spreads, its severity and symptoms.
The U.S. announced it had conducted a drone strike on July 31 killing al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. But social media posts make unfounded claims that al-Zawahiri had died in 2020 from asthma. The posts cite an unconfirmed story in a British tabloid, which reported a year later that al-Zawahiri was still alive.
Three stimulus payments have been sent to Americans to ease the economic impact of the pandemic. Social media posts are now sharing a false claim about a new, $40,000 federal stimulus loan. But it’s a marketing ploy. The bottom of the web page says, “This is not a government program nor is it government aid, this is an advertorial for a loan service.”
It’s estimated that COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, but false claims continue to cast doubt on their safety and efficacy. One such claim that has spread around the world falsely suggests that three Canadian doctors died from the shots. But they each died of a long-term illness unrelated to the vaccines.
There is “unequivocal” evidence that humans are causing global warming, the U.N. climate change panel has said. But viral posts revive a 2014 video of Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman falsely claiming “climate change is not happening.” The channel, which supports the scientific consensus that climate change is real, had distanced itself from Coleman.
A Wuhan Institute of Virology study describes assembling part of a monkeypox viral genome for use in a diagnostic test. Although the researchers only made a fraction of the genome — and it matches a different version of the virus — social media posts are using the study to baselessly claim that the current monkeypox outbreak is a result of a lab leak.
Climate change has affected ocean ecosystems, scientists say. But an unfounded claim on social media that “plankton in the Atlantic Ocean is 90% gone” and the ocean is “now pretty much dead” is based on a faulty paper.
Tetanus vaccines can prevent deadly disease in infants, but a video circulating on social media is spreading old, unfounded rumors that discourage immunization.
A bill introduced in the North Carolina House of Representatives last year said anyone getting an abortion should be “held accountable” for murder. The bill received little support and did not advance. But social media posts misleadingly claimed the state is considering a proposal that would “make it legal to murder a pregnant woman” trying to get an abortion.
President Joe Biden claimed in a July 20 speech that growing up in Delaware near oil refineries gave him cancer. Posts on social media misinterpreted that to mean he currently has cancer. A White House spokesperson said Biden was referring to a skin cancer that was removed before he became president.