We wrote about a lot of misinformation in 2024, and, as usual, some fact-checking articles piqued our readers’ interest more than others. In this post, we present the 10 most popular stories published on our website this past year.
In addition to extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, one of his signature achievements in his first term, President-elect Donald Trump has proposed a long list of tax cuts, from eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits to lowering the corporate tax rate. We’ll look at Trump’s tax proposals, their cost and what impact they could have on taxpayers.
House Speaker Mike Johnson was spinning the facts when he claimed Republicans would have won a larger majority in the House in the 2024 election if not for Democrats’ gerrymandering of districts. The net effect of redistricting did not give the Democrats a large advantage, experts told us, with most of them saying the Republicans benefited more than Democrats.
President-elect Donald Trump is the first Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote in 20 years. Social media users have wrongly claimed that Trump lost the popular vote, but they are confusing the popular vote with a majority of votes. The unofficial results show Trump received slightly less than a majority, but more votes than any candidate.
Some states were still counting ballots weeks after Election Day in accordance with their regulations, state officials and an election law expert said. But an Instagram post misleadingly implied that the ongoing vote counts were evidence of some unspecified election malfeasance.
On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly vowed to begin “the largest deportation program in American history.” How exactly he plans to carry that out, and how many he ultimately intends to deport, remains unclear.
While campaigning for a second term in office, President-elect Donald Trump declared “tariff” to be his “favorite word” and “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” We’ll explain how tariffs work, what Trump has proposed and what experts say about it, and what happened during Trump’s first term.
Elon Musk’s Starlink system helped provide internet access to communities affected by the recent hurricanes. But online posts spread baseless claims that Starlink “uploaded votes in swing states” and helped Donald Trump win the election. Experts said voting machines are not connected to the internet during tabulation; one state election official called the claims “utter garbage.”
Vice President Kamala Harris received many celebrity endorsements leading up to the election, including from Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Eminem, Megan Thee Stallion and Lizzo. Social media posts have made the unfounded claim that these celebrities were collectively paid $20 million for their endorsements. We’ve found no evidence to support the claim.
Some social media posts falsely claimed that CBS News reported there was “cheating” in the 2024 presidential election that benefitted President-elect Donald Trump. We found no evidence of such a report, and a CBS News spokesperson said the outlet “did not report or say there was cheating in the election.”