迷你词

一个在线广告写道：“相同的双胞胎结婚了相同的双胞胎-但是医生说，’停’。”

【宣称】

两组相同的双胞胎彼此结婚后，医生告诉他们 “停下来”。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

In November 2020, an advertisement promised quite the shocking revelation from a doctor: “Identical Twins Marry Identical Twins – But Then The Doctor Says, ‘STOP’.”

However, once readers followed the ad, as Reddit user monkeyfunkster observed in the “Saved You a Click” subreddit, none of the 41 slides in the slideshow even mentioned a doctor. In fact, the word “stop” didn’t appear at all.

The story looked to be originally posted on travel website Wanderoam. On Wanderoam, one URL for the story ended in “-ta” and the other in “-ob,” representing Taboola and Outbrain, two platforms used to serve advertisements across the web to entice readers to click on a story. Using these separate URLs likely allowed Wanderoam to measure which advertising platform brought in the most readers at the lowest advertising cost. Once readers landed on the story page, the words “but then the doctor says, ‘stop'” did not appear. The headline read: “The Extraordinary Story Of Identical Twins Who Married…Identical Twins.”

It is unclear why the doctor was added to the headline, other than to entice readers. The couples were not doing anything medically dangerous.

We were able to confirm that the clickbait advertisement was real, although we were not able to obtain a screenshot. It appeared in Google searches with the website name Wanderoam. It’s possible that advertising for the story had been turned off by the time we began to look for the ad.

It is true, however, that a pair of identical twins married another set of identical twins. In February 2018, the Associated Press reported on how both weddings were combined into one:

The Lynchburg News & Advance reports Jeremy and Josh Salyers proposed to Briana and Brittany Deane on Feb. 2 at Virginia’s aptly named Twin Lakes State Park. The engagements came six months after the pairs met at the Twin Days Festival, which bills itself as the world’s largest annual gathering of twins and other multiples, in Twinsburg, Ohio.

The 31-year-old Deanes had visited the festival, which Brittany calls “a magical place,” since their first year of law school, the first time they had been apart. The Salyers made their first festival visit in 2017 and “lucked out on (their) first attempt,” as Josh puts it.

On Aug. 13, 2020, both couples announced on Instagram that they were expecting babies:

Guess what!!?? BOTH couples are pregnant!

We are thrilled and grateful to experience overlapping pregnancies and to share this news with you all!

Our children will not only be cousins, but full genetic siblings and quaternary multiples! Can’t wait to meet them and for them to meet each other!

Inside Edition interviewed the sets of twins in September, chronicling their lives together under the same roof:

你怎么能在从未发生过的突袭中死亡？

【宣称】

中央情报局局长吉娜·哈斯佩尔于 2020 年 11 月被发现死亡。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

In November 2020, rumors circulated about the whereabouts of CIA Director Gina Haspel. An article reproduced on the conspiratorial Rumor Mill News, for example, claimed that Haspel was arrested for treason. Others claimed that Haspel had been found dead from natural causes. 

Both of these rumors are unsubstantiated and are built upon a debunked conspiracy theory about a fictional raid on an election software company in Germany.

In the days following the 2020 election, the internet was flooded with conspiracy theories that falsely claimed the election was rigged or fraudulent in some manner. One of the more outlandish theories held that an election software company in Germany had been used to alter the vote tallies in the United States.

This theory reached a wide audience after Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said during a Zoom call that U.S. Army forces had seized servers from the software company Scytl in Frankfurt, Germany. Gohmert also said that his information was based on a tweet and that he did not know the truth, yet conspiracy theorists picked up this thread and ran with it. 

On Nov. 15, 2020, The Associated Press published an article investigating the rumor, which they determined to be false:

CLAIM: The U.S. Army raided the Frankfurt office of the Spanish election software company Scytl to seize servers that had evidence of voting irregularities in the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Both the Army and Scytl told The Associated Press the claim is not true. Furthermore, Scytl does not have offices or servers in Frankfurt, Germany.

THE FACTS: Social media users Saturday were sharing reports published by conservative websites claiming servers that would reveal wrongdoing in the U.S. election had been confiscated by U.S. military forces in Germany. Most posts said the servers belong to the software company Scytl, which is based in Barcelona, and some suggested the servers housed information from Dominion Voting Systems.

Although this raid did not happen, that didn’t stop conspiracy theorists. 

On Nov. 29, Rumor Mill News reproduced an article (it’s not entirely clear where the article originated, but it appears to come from a “Q drop” — an unsourced rumor penned by a person cosplaying as a government official) claiming that Haspel had been severely injured during this raid and that she was then airlifted to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (GITMO) where she was arrested for treason.  

That article, which misspells Haspel’s name numerous times, reads in part:

CIA Director Gina Hasple was arrested after she was injured in the Frankfurt Germany CIA building raid to secure the servers.

The building had no guards and was unprotected. Hasple pulled in some private special military trained security forces to protect the building from such a suspected raid. When the raid happened Hasple was there…

…The CIA made up a cover story about the 5 soldiers and one cia operative killed and said they were killed in a helicopter crash.

Hasple was air evacuated out. She was flown to GITMO where she was treated and received a tribunal for treason. She agreed to help trump for a lighter sentence of life which can be revoked if she chooses to not cooperate. She has now turned over information on the servers, what they were for and what they did and who was involved.

Shortly after this article was published, another rumor started to circulate about Haspel claiming that the CIA director had been “found dead” of “natural causes,” which led to speculation that the government had actually killed Haspel and that they were now covering up her death. 

Of course, none of this is true. These rumors did not originate with credible sources and no evidence has been provided to support them. The rumors about Haspel’s death/arrest also stem from a debunked story about a fictional raid on a German software company. As such, we’ve marked this rumor as “False.”

声称特朗普的合法支持者在试图推翻格鲁吉亚选举结果时赢得了 “重大禁令”，这证明是短暂的。

【宣称】

特朗普的合法支持者在寻求推翻格鲁吉亚选举结果的过程中赢得了 “重大禁令”。

【结论】

已过时

【原文】

On Nov. 29, 2020, President Donald Trump retweeted a claim that #TeamKraken (the nickname for persons seeking to overturn Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden) had won “a major injunction” in Georgia (a state Trump lost to Biden by about 13,000 votes) resulting in “an order to freeze all [voting] machines” there:

GREAT NEWS! Is Fake News @60Minutes watching this? //t.co/v9T2MUmGss

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2020

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten initially granted a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring the State of Georgia “to impound and preserve the voting machines in the State of Georgia, and to prevent any wiping of data.” However, shortly afterwards Batten reversed himself and denied the request for a TRO because the voting machines in question are not under the control of the defendants in the case (i.e., Georgia state officials), but rather under the control of Georgia county officials (who were not named in the lawsuit):

Plaintiffs contend that Union County officials have advised that they are going to wipe or reset the voting machines of all data and bring the count back to zero on Monday, November 30. On this basis, Plaintiffs seek a temporary restraining order to impound and preserve the voting machines in the State of Georgia, and to prevent any wiping of data. However, Plaintiffs’ request fails because the voting equipment that they seek to impound is in the possession of county election officials. Any injunction the Court issues would extend only to Defendants and those within their control, and Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that county election officials are within Defendants’ control. Defendants cannot serve as a proxy for local election officials against whom the relief should be sought. Therefore, to the extent Plaintiffs seek emergency relief to impound and preserve the voting machines, that request is denied.

Whether or not the voting machines in Georgia are impounded and/or wiped, the end result is unlikely to be of any import. The state certified its vote after performing a statewide Risk-Limiting Audit of all votes cast which “upheld and reaffirmed the original outcome produced by the machine tally of votes cast,” and claims by #TeamKraken that machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were part of a massive voting fraud conspiracy which deprived Trump of a lawful victory were contradicted by Dominion spokesman Michael Steel, who explained that the alleged switching of votes from Trump to Biden could not have occurred because it was “physically impossible”:

“Well, it’s physically impossible,” Steel said of vote switching. “Look, when a voter votes on a Dominion machine, they fill out a ballot on a touch screen. They are given a printed copy which they then give to a local election official for safekeeping. If any electronic interference had taken place, the tally reported electronically would not match the printed ballots. and in every case where we’ve looked at — in Georgia, all across the country — the printed ballot, the gold standard in election security, has matched the electronic tally.”

“We simply provide a tool to count the ballots — to print and count ballots,” he said. “There is no way such a massive fraud could have taken place, and there are no connections between our company and Venezuela, Germany, Barcelona, Kathmandu, whatever the latest conspiracy theory is.”

特朗普一再提出的关于底特律选民人数的选举欺诈声称与现实毫无关系。

【宣称】

在 2020 年大选中，底特律记录的选票数超过了居住在该市的合格选民。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

One of the many election fraud claims made by President Donald Trump in a desperate attempt to deny the results of the election he lost to Democratic challenger Joe Biden in 2020 was that he (Trump) won the state of Michigan (which he actually lost to Biden by 150,000 votes) — but voter fraud in the state was rampant, as supposedly evidenced by the city of Detroit’s recording a number of voters greater than the number of eligible voters living in that city:

“This election was rigged,” Trump told a group of Republican legislators from Pennsylvania by phone on [Nov 25]. “This election has to be turned around. We won all these swing states by a lot.”

“You look at the things that happened in Detroit,” he went on. “You have more votes than you have voters … think of it, more votes than you had voters.”

In Detroit, there are FAR MORE VOTES THAN PEOPLE. Nothing can be done to cure that giant scam. I win Michigan!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020

As with many similar Trump claims about election fraud, this one was easily disproved by simply referencing the relevant statistics. According to the City of Detroit’s website, that area was home to 504,714 registered voters in 2020, of whom 250,138 (i.e., just less than half) cast ballots in that year’s general election:

Furthermore, none of these voting statistics is inconsistent with the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates for Detroit.

As other reports noted, Trump appeared to be misunderstanding the concept of “out-of-balance” precincts, which had little to no effect on the outcome of the presidential race in Michigan:

Trump appears to be referring to “out-of-balance” precincts where the number of votes counted is slightly different from the number of voters checked into a polling place — but these mismatches are not evidence of fraud, and instead are usually routine errors like poll-workers incorrectly scanning voters’ names, failing to record spoiled ballots, or not noticing if a voter leaves the precinct without casting a ballot, city officials say.

Detroit has reported only 357 mismatched votes across all out-of-balance precincts, Mayor Mike Duggan said, which is less than 0.2% of the total ballots cast citywide.

尽管许多观众声称清楚地记得喜剧演员辛巴达在一部名为 “沙扎姆” 的电影中扮演精灵，但这些记忆似乎是 “曼德拉效应” 的又一个例子。

【宣称】

20 世纪 90 年代的电影 “沙扎姆” 将喜剧演员辛巴达主演为精灵。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

A popular internet theory holds that actor David Adkins, better known as the comedian Sinbad, played a genie in a popular children’s movie released sometime in the 1990s called Shazaam.

<!–

The movie Shazaam, from the 1990s, staring Sinbad was never a real movie. Myself and thousands of others remember watching this movie, but apparently it was never made.

I’ve tried looking it up myself and haven’t found anything about it. There is an article about the oddity that was on Facebook. Someone commented a screenshot of the vhs in the comments, but again, I could not find this picture on the internet myself.

–>

Kazaam: A simpler explanation is that some fans are misremembering the details of another movie from the 1990s that featured a popular actor playing a genie. In 1996, Shaquille O’Neal essayed the role of a genie in the film Kazaam:

Sinbad appeared in several popular childrens’ movies in the 1990s, so it would not be particularly surprising if some viewers mistakenly remembered him in this particular genie film (which, naturally, would not go unnoticed by Internet pranksters). In fact, a preview for Kazaam was reportedly featured during the previews on some VHS copies of the Sinbad movie The First Kid:

It appears that this Sinbad-genie phenomenon is another instance of the “Mandela Effect,” an informal term for a collective false memory. The term was coined by a woman who discovered that she and hundreds of other people believed, and remembered, that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s.  Mandela actually died in 2013, after serving as South Africa’s first black president and winning the Nobel Peace Prize (along with another former president, Frederik Willem de Klerk, who ended the system of segregation known in South Africa as apartheid during his time in power) in 1993 — all of which, of course, would have been impossible if Mandela had been dead for a decade.

SIGHTINGS:

As an April Fool’s Day joke in 2017, the College Humor web site posted “lost footage” from the non-existent Shazaam film starring Sinbad (complete with references to the Mandela Effect):

在真正的悲剧之后，一个少年玩笑传播。

【宣称】

一张照片显示，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在田纳西弄湿裤子后。

【结论】

字幕错误

【原文】

On March 6, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump traveled to Tennessee to survey the damage done by a series of tornadoes that killed at least 25 residents statewide. As Trump met with local officials, first-responders, and residents affected by the deadly twisters, a photograph started to circulate on social media that supposedly showed the 73-year-old commander-in-chief had wet his pants:

This is a genuine photograph. However, the darkened area on Trump’s pants is not the result of incontinence. It is just a shadow. 

This photograph was taken at Jefferson Avenue Church of Christ in Cookeville, Tennessee, by local photographer George Walker IV. The picture was posted to social media by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee:

Getty Images photographer Jim Watson captured the moment from a different angle:

Trump’s visit to Tennessee was covered by several news crews and photographers; videos are available via VOA News, Fox News, NBC News, the White House, The Associated Press, and several more. Dozens of additional photographs are also available via The Tennessean.

The moment before the viral photograph is documented in the following clip from VOA News. You can see how the dark spot on Trump’s pants (as well as the dark spots on everyone else’s clothing) move in a manner consistent with shadows and wrinkles. 

如果听起来太好而不是真的，那可能是。

【宣称】

Aldi 将向在 Facebook 页面上分享或评论的人赠送价值一年的免费杂货。

【结论】

骗局

【原文】

A phenomenon know as “like-farming” refers to unscrupulous online activity in which fraudsters post salacious material in order to generate as many likes, shares, and comments as possible. As the popularity of these posts and pages grows, so do the opportunities to scam social media users. For instance, a fraudster may edit a post to include a malware link or request personal information — or, if the audience has grown large enough, change the page’s focus entirely and start selling spammy products. 

In January 2020, the popular grocery chain Aldi was used in one such scam. A fraudulent post from a page resembling the official Aldi USA Facebook page promised everyone who shared or commented on it the chance to win a year’s worth of free groceries:

This post did not originate with the official Aldi Facebook page, and the grocery chain is not giving away a year of free groceries to any Facebook fans who like, comment, or share this post. 

For starters, the post does not appear on the official Aldi USA Facebook page, nor on any of the store’s other social media pages. We also checked the grocery chain’s website for any mention of a grocery giveaway, but this too-good-to-be-true deal is not listed among Aldi’s specials.  

Lastly, this fraudulent Facebook post follows the same script of dozens of other like-farming scams: It makes a big promise (a year of free groceries) in order to entice readers, then makes a simple request (to comment or share) to ensure that this post reaches a larger audience. The post is also light on specifics (11 pm in what time zone? And what Sunday?) and originated on a page unaffiliated with the grocery chain. 

Here’s how the Better Business Bureau described like-farming scams:

What Exactly is Like-Farming?

Like-farming on Facebook is a technique in which scammers create an eye-catching post designed to get many likes and shares. Posts often give people emotional reasons to click, like, and share, such as adorable animals, sick children, or political messages. For example, some posts claim that Facebook will donate money for every comment or share. As more people like and share the post, it appears in more news feeds, giving the post a much wider audience.

Why Do Scammers “Farm” for Likes?

As with many scams, like-farming has several different aims. When scammers ask you to “register” in order to win a free iPad or a free flight, this is a way to steal your personal information. Other versions can be more complex. Often, the post itself is initially harmless – albeit completely fictional. But when the scammer collects enough likes and shares, they will edit the post and add something malicious. That’s often a link to a website that downloads malware to your machine. Other times, once scammers reach their target number of likes, they strip the page’s original content and use it to promote spammy products. They may also resell the page on the black market. These buyers can use it to spam followers or harvest the information Facebook provides.

This is not the first time that Aldi has been used for this type of scam. In 2015 (and again in 2019), a scam post offering free Aldi coupons was circulated on social media. 

We reached out to Aldi for more details and will update this article if more information becomes available. 

一张广泛传播的照片是总统形象上的污点。

【宣称】

一张照片显示唐纳德·特朗普的高尔夫裤上有腹泻污渍。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

In March 2017, a distasteful image showing President Donald Trump with a brown stain down the back of his golf pants appeared on social media, along with the claim that he was incontinent:

The image reached a far wider audience when it was featured in a fake news article published by the web site Viral Chords a few days after it first appeared on social media, appearing alongside a claim that the President had experienced diarrhea during a recent golf outing:

President Trump had a little accident on the golf course today, and no, and wasn’t politically. After a large brunch of eggs, bacon, ham, pheasant, roast beef, elk, and a variety of sausage, Trump had a case of diarrhea while playing the 5th hole of his back nine.

A golden color cart drove up and escorted Trump back to the side entrance of Mar-a-lago.

“It wasn’t pretty,” said one golfer.

“It was pretty funny,” said another.

The same photograph was used to illustrate a 30 December 2017 article published by the Empire News junk news site, headlined “A Crying Donald Trump Was Escorted Off Mar-A-Lago Golf Course After Accidentally Pooping His Pants”:

President Trump has spent most of his winter vacation golfing with friends and family at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, but on his latest outing, the President was caught with his pants up…when perhaps they should have been down.

According to photographers at the golf game, President Trump was on the 13th hole and right after teeing off, he let out “a massive, wet, drippy fart sound.”

“It was simultaneously hilarious and disgusting,” said Chris Robbins, the photographer who captured the immediate aftermath. “I wasn’t getting any really good shots throughout the day, but then I heard Trump rip one, really hard and really wet. I look over, and he has literally shit himself. It was made even more hilarious because, like most dipshit golfers, he was wearing stupid clothes – white pants!”

Both this story and the image are fake. The original photograph was taken by Reuters photographer David Moir on 10 July 2012, during the opening of the Trump International Golf Links golf course. Here’s a look at the original image, as well as a cropped closeup showing Trump’s stain-free backside:

A similar image purportedly showing an incontinent Hillary Clinton was circulated during the 2016 presidential campaign. That photograph was also a hoax. 

特朗普一再关于宾夕法尼亚州邮寄选票数量的选举欺诈声称与现实毫无关系。

【宣称】

2020 年选举期间，宾夕法尼亚州记录的邮寄投票数量远远超过所要求的邮寄选票数。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

One of the many pieces of misinformation repeated by President Donald Trump and his legal team, in an effort to dispute the results of Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, was the claim that the number of mail-in votes recorded in Pennsylvania greatly exceeded the number of mail-in ballots requested:

Pennsylvania reports having mailed out 1,823,148 ballots, of which 1,462,302 were returned. Yet total mail-in voters number 2,589,242? From where did the extra 1,126,940 votes come?

This was posted on our Department of State dashboard but had since been deleted. pic.twitter.com/bDmvCK0kDB

— Senator Doug Mastriano (@SenMastriano) November 27, 2020

This claim was egregiously wrong, however.

The 1.8 million figure represents the number of mail-in ballots that Pennsylvania reported had been requested by persons registered as Democrats as of the voter registration deadline of Oct. 19. That figure did not include the hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots that were also requested by persons registered as Republicans (or persons registered with third parties affiliations or with no party affiliation) as of that date:

The deadline for requesting mail-in ballots was several days later (Oct. 27), and by then
over 3 million mail-in ballots were requested, of which over 2.6 million were ultimately returned by the specified deadline for ballot counting:

The numbers reiterated by Trump and his supporters in an attempt to prove election fraud in Pennsylvania bore no relationship to the total of mail-in votes recorded in that state and were not proof of any type of malfeasance or major error in vote-counting.

即使是迪士尼和中国科技的联合力量也不能制造原始人才。

【宣称】

一段视频准确地描绘了在中国创造的机器人舞蹈演员，在上海迪士尼乐园度假区表演。机器人像人一样，面部表情和动作真实。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

Chinese-manufactured robots are very popular on the internet for their many impressive and lifelike feats, but one story really took us for a spin. A video of a pair of ballroom dancers went viral, with many claiming that the performers were not real, but were in fact robots created in China that were performing at the Shanghai Disneyland resort.

Snopes readers sent us the same video of the couple dancing, with the woman in a white dress and her partner in coattails. Many asked us to confirm if they were, indeed, robots. You can watch the video, tweeted by the verified account of an Indian politician and actor, below:

Saw this fantastic & unbelievable video ..had to share it for all to enjoy. …..👇👇👇👇👇 This classic dance was made in China and broadcasted in Shanghai Disneyland. They are not female dancers. But are all robots made in China The show time is about 5 minutes, but the pic.twitter.com/BbivDv3dq9

— Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) October 18, 2020

The tweet claims that these dancers were “robots made in China,” and this five minute performance was broadcast at Shanghai Disneyland. The same language has been circulating in others’ tweets when sharing this video. 

The origin of this performance was actually a 2013 clip from British television show “Strictly Come Dancing” that aired on BBC One. The performers were Abbey Clancy and Aljaž Škorjanec, who were dancing the Viennese waltz. You can see the performance shared from the official BBC YouTube account:

This false rumor is similar to another one from 2019 that claimed Chinese classical dancer Qin Xi was actually a robot performing at Shanghai’s Disneyland.

Given that the actual video shows two very real people dancing on a British television show, and not two robots, we rate this claim as “False.”

有传言说右翼社交媒体网站 Parler 遭到黑客攻击，但到目前为止，这些说法没有得到证实。

【宣称】

右翼社交媒体应用 Parler 在 2020 年 11 月遭到黑客入侵。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

On Nov. 24, 2020, a rumor started circulating on social media that the right-wing website Parler had been hacked. This rumor, which held that Parler users had their Social Security numbers and private messages stolen, was largely based on a single (since deleted) tweet and a months-old screenshot.

Rumors about Parler being hacked went viral after Twitter user @Kevinabosch posted the following message: “I’ve seen what looks like legit proof of 5000 compromised Parler accounts including DM’s of some well-known figures. Hackers decompiled the app, zero day exploit etc.. I wish I could unsee what I’ve seen.”

This claim, however, came without evidence. And as Jane Lytvynenko, a Buzzfeed reporter who monitors social media for viral misinformation, noted, this account has shared inaccurate claims on social media before. By the morning of Nov. 25, this tweet was deleted. 

In addition to the unfounded claim displayed above, a screenshot supposedly showing proof of the hack was also circulated on social media:

This screenshot, however, is not recent. It was taken in July 2020, more than four months before the current spate of rumors.

Furthermore, this screenshot comes from an old WordPress installation of Parler, not from the site’s app. Tech reporter Mikael Thalen noted that while this WordPress site may have once been used for simple blog posts, like announcements about the new social media site, it did not host any user data.

Parler CEO John Matze disputed the rumors that his social media site was hacked, writing that “we do not use WordPress products, nor WordPress databases.”

As of this writing, there’s no evidence to show that any user data, including Social Security numbers or private messages, were hacked from Parler. This rumor originated with a seemingly baseless claim that was subsequently propped up by a months-old screenshot. Furthermore, the CEO of the company has called all of these allegations fake. 

We will update this article if any additional information comes to light.

一张令人惊叹的照片让人想知道它是否真实。

【宣称】

2020 年夏天拍摄的一张照片显示，木星在天空中被四个最大的卫星包围。

【结论】

真

【原文】

A picture posted to social media showing a bright celestial body in the sky surrounded by four smaller lights captured viewers’ imaginations in 2020, prompting some to wonder whether the photograph was real.

Earth, Jupiter, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, and Io. (Not in order.) pic.twitter.com/9TvKkDZuIn

— Riding with Robots (@ridingrobots) July 7, 2020

It is real. The picture was taken by Bill Dunford, a writer and social media specialist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

As Dunford explained to people fascinated by the picture, he took the shot in Brighton, Utah, on July 7, 2020, with two seconds of exposure and a zoom lens, noting, “You can see Jupiter’s moons like this yourself with a pair of binoculars! (Keep in mind the moons move & might not be in these same positions when you look.)”

Dunford said on Twitter that he had taken a similar photograph in 2019, near Salt Lake City, which was posted to NASA’s website.

Jupiter is the solar system’s largest planet and has dozens of moons, although the ones visible in Dunford’s picture are its largest.

2018 年的年度总统感恩节传统令人生动地预示了 2020 年真正的美国总统大选。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普赦免了一个土耳其，他说失去了 “公平和公开的选举”，但 “拒绝让步”。

【结论】

真

【原文】

The “pardoning” of a live turkey by the President of the United States, thus sparing the bird from ending up as a family’s holiday dinner, is an annual Thanksgiving tradition that began with U.S. President George H.W. Bush in 1989.

In 2018, in an eerie foreshadowing (or, some would cynically say, a telegraphing of strategy) of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned a turkey named Carrots who had lost “a fair and open election” (i.e., a White House poll) over which of two turkeys should be spared.

According to Trump, Carrots was the loser of the election but “refused to concede and demanded a recount,” and even though “the result did not change,” Trump mercifully granted a pardon to both Carrots and the winning turkey.

USA Today contemporaneously described the 2018 version of the yearly White House holiday event as follows:

Thanksgiving is for family, friends and food, but on Tuesday at the White House, it was for the birds.

Two birds, specifically: Peas and Carrots, who received a kind of “presidential pardon” from President Donald Trump on Tuesday in the Rose Garden.

“That turkey is so lucky. I’ve never seen such a beautiful turkey,” Trump said.

Joined by first lady Melania, Trump said although both turkeys were being pardoned, Peas was declared the winner of a White House poll that asked Americans to pick which turkey should be pardoned. Trump deemed the contest a “fair and open election.”

“Unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount, and we’re still fighting with Carrots,” he said. “I will tell you we’ve come to a conclusion. Carrots, I’m sorry to tell you the result did not change.”

“Even though Peas and Carrots have received a presidential pardon, I have warned them that House Democrats are likely to issue them both subpoenas,” Trump concluded.

Here’s a video of that November 2018 event:

FLASHBACK: In 2018, President Trump attacked Carrots the turkey for refusing to concede he had lost the vote on the White House turkey pardon contest.

"This was a fair election… unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount."

pic.twitter.com/MzcackiDwd

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) November 23, 2020

梅里亚姆-韦伯斯特对 “巨石” 的定义是 “单一伟大的石头，通常以方尖碑或柱子的形式。”

【宣称】

照片显示了在犹他州发现的金属、非天然的巨石。

【结论】

真

【原文】

In November 2020, photographs and videos supposedly showing a monolith that was discovered somewhere in Utah started to circulate on social media:

While we don’t know too much about what this object is or who put it there, this is a genuine image of a surprising discovery. This photograph was taken by the Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau and was posted to their official social media pages on Nov. 20. The bureau explained that they discovered the monolith a few days before while conducting a count of big horn sheep in the area. 

The Bureau wrote on Instagram: “Counting big horn sheep with DWR this week. During the counts we came across this, in the middle of nowhere, buried deep in the rock. Inquiring minds want to know, what the heck is it? Anyone? 👽?”

In a news release, the organization said that the discovery was made on Nov. 18 somewhere in southeastern Utah. The group did not want to give the exact location of the object, fearing that — since it was in an isolated area — it would lead to visitors who could potentially get lost and stranded.

The object is made of metal and judging from the photographs it stands over 10 feet tall. While it’s unclear who erected this monolith, the government agency noted that it was illegal “to install structures or art without authorization on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you’re from.”

Here’s the full press release and some additional photographs of the monolith:

On November 18, 2020, the Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau was working with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to conduct a count of big horn sheep in a portion of southeastern Utah.

While on this mission, they spotted an unusual object and landed nearby to investigate further.

The crew members found a metal monolith installed in the ground in a remote area of red rock.

The crew said there was no obvious indication of who might have put the monolith there.

The exact location of the installation is not being disclosed since it is in a very remote area and if individuals were to attempt to visit the area, there is a significant possibility they may become stranded and require rescue.

It is illegal to install structures or art without authorization on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you’re from.

The Bureau of Land Management will be determining if they need to investigate further.

While we can’t say for certain where this monolith comes from, the most likely explanation is that it was some form of art installation. It’s possible that it was undertaken in the same spirit as the crop circle hoaxes that popped up around England in the 1970s and convinced a generation of people that aliens were communicating via corn fields.

A monolith is defined in the dictionary as a “great stone often in the form of an obelisk or column,” but this word has become closely associated with alien encounters, thanks in large part to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In fact, the monolith that was discovered in Utah bares a resemblance to the alien monolith depicted in the film:

It should also be noted that although news of this mysterious monolith went viral in November 2020, imagery from Google Maps indicates that the odd artifact has been in its current location since at least 2015-16.

Here are a few additional videos of this monolith from the Utah Department of Public Safety:

We will update this article if an artist (or an alien) ever comes forward to claim responsibility for this monolith.

来自德克萨斯州的美国参议员在对 2020 年大选后立即发生什么的 “保证” 方面极为错误。

【宣称】

参议员泰德·克鲁兹表示，如果乔·拜登赢得 2020 年总统大选，民主党人将在一周后放松 COVID 限制。

【结论】

正确的归因

【原文】

One of the many striking aspects of the 2020 COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. was that the public response to social distancing restrictions intended to curb the spread of the virus was sharply divided over partisan political lines. As one (of many) academic studies found that year, “Individuals’ social distancing has more to do with whether they are Republicans or Democrats than the incidence of COVID-19 in their communities, and the effect of partisanship on the willingness to social distance is increasing over time, especially among Republicans.”

Each side blamed the other for “weaponizing” the pandemic response, with President Donald Trump accusing Democrats of hypocrisy during the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign by repeatedly asserting that come the day after the Nov. 3 election (i.e., when COVID would no longer be a useful political issue), Americans wouldn’t be hearing much about the coronavirus any more:

ALL THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA WANTS TO TALK ABOUT IS COVID, COVID, COVID. ON NOVEMBER 4th, YOU WON’T BE HEARING SO MUCH ABOUT IT ANYMORE. WE ARE ROUNDING THE TURN!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2020

Cruz turned out to be doubly wrong.

Not only did Biden win the election, but Democrats did not re-open schools and businesses amidst proclamations that “everything’s magically better” a week later. In fact, within a few weeks after the election, Democratic governors and mayors in states such as Washington, California, and Michigan had imposed extensive new restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.

当总务管理局负责人在 2020 年 11 月引起政治关注时，她也发现自己处于毫无根据的谣言的中心。

【宣称】

一张照片显示，美国 GSA 管理员艾米莉·墨菲在 2016 年特朗普集会上穿着 “他妈的感受” 衬衫。

【结论】

字幕错误

【原文】

In November 2020, an image circulated on social media supposedly showing Emily Murphy, the head of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), at a rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in a “fuck your feelings” shirt. The GSA oversees presidential elections:

While this is a picture of two Trump supporters, it does not show Murphy. 

Murphy found herself at the center of a political controversy following the U.S. presidential election in November 2020. While President-elect Joe Biden has clearly been shown to be the winner of the 2020 election, Trump has so far refused to concede, and has continued to contest the election in court. While politicians and social media users have started calling on Murphy to honor the results of the election and issue a letter of “ascertainment” to allow Biden to start working with the White House on an orderly transition, she has so far refused to do so. 

Regardless of how one feels about Murphy’s performance as GSA administrator, the above-displayed picture has nothing to do with her. 

For starters, the picture has been circulating on social media since it was taken in October 2016 at a rally for Trump at Cincinnati’s Heritage Bank Center (formerly the U.S. Bank Arena). While the man on the left was identified at the time as “Randy Rigdon” by NBC News reporter Frank Thorpe, we have not been able to ascertain the identify of the woman on the right. It is suspicious, however, that Murphy’s name wasn’t associated with this until November 2020, when she found herself in the political limelight.

This “identification” was made without any evidence. Murphy was not identified in this photo by someone who knows her or by someone who was in attendance at this rally. Rather, this identification was made years after the fact by someone uninvolved with the picture who is basing the claim on a passing resemblance. As we’ve seen time and time again, this is not a good way to identify a person in a photograph. 

As a side note, this picture was taken in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is not where Murphy lives, as her GSA biography states that she lives in Washington, D.C., nor is it where she’s originally from, St. Louis, Missouri.

Lastly, the woman in the above-displayed picture simply does not look like Murphy. Here’s Murphy’s official White House portrait from December 2017:

无论病毒电话中的那个人可能是谁，你都应该知道加拿大医疗机构已经发布了反驳他的评论的声明。

【宣称】

加拿大皇家医师和外科医生学院主席罗杰·霍德金森博士称 COVID-19 为骗局。

【结论】

混合

【原文】

In November 2020, social media users began sharing a video that supposedly captured a man named Dr. Roger Hodkinson stating that COVID-19 was the “biggest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspected public” during a city council meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Although this sort of claim can typically be dismissed out of hand (COVID-19 is not a hoax, and the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in more than 1.3 million deaths worldwide), social media users claimed that this person’s opinion was worth listening to since he was the “Chairman of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.”

This caller in question was not the Chairman of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and that medical organization has released a statement distancing themselves from any association with his comments.

对标记为讽刺的内容进行例行审查。

【宣称】

猎人意外射击了一名被认定为鹿的 “跨物种人”。

【结论】

标签为讽刺

【原文】

On Nov. 22, 2020, World News Daily Report published an article positing that a “trans species man” who self-identified as a deer was mistakenly shot by a hunter:

TRANS SPECIES MAN WHO SELF-IDENTIFIES AS A DEER ACCIDENTALLY SHOT BY HUNTERS

A South Carolina man who self-identifies as a deer has been transported to the hospital via helicopter after being shot by two hunters.

William Tenenbaum, 31, is lying in critical condition according to medical staff at Allendale County Hospital after being mistaken for a deer by two local hunters.

This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:

WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.

Although this story originated on a satirical website, it was republished on social media and by other media outlets without any disclaimer labeling it as a work of fiction. 

It should also be noted that these pictures do not show a “trans species man” who identifies as a deer. They were taken circa 2009 and show a dancer in a bodypaint deer costume. While we have not been able to identify the performer, this “humanimal” was created by makeup artist Laura Baker and photographer Erik Erxon. 

For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

Clickbaiters 已经把一个名叫 Chiy-Nieece Thacker 的女性交通停靠的事件变成了更加耸人听闻的事件。

【宣称】

一名警察拦住了司机 Chy-Nieece Thacker，然后在后备箱里发现令人震惊或令人惊讶的东西之后让她走。

【结论】

大部分是假

【原文】

Many different clickbait and arbitrage websites have published articles about a seemingly recent incident in which a motorist named Chy-Niece Thacker was pulled over by a police officer and then let go after the officer — who was being furtively recorded by the driver — popped her trunk and found something alarming or surprising there:

The implication of all these misleading and incomplete headlines was that the officer found something so shocking or unusual in the trunk of the woman’s car (an explosive device? biohazardous material?) that he let the driver go for his own safety (without even calling for backup), or that the motorist recorded him engaging in some unlawful act (such as stealing something from her trunk) and thus he didn’t dare cite her.

这位康涅狄格州民主党人承认对他的兵役记录提出虚假和误导性的说法，但坚持认为他 “误解了”。

【宣称】

参议员理查德·布卢门塔尔歪曲了他在越南战争期间的兵役记录。

【结论】

大多是真的

【原文】

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court prompted a fierce, largely partisan battle that reached a fever pitch in September 2018 when two women accused the U.S. Court of Appeals judge of having engaged in sexual assault and misconduct while he was in high school and university.

Kavanaugh denied the allegations, but the controversy dominated political debate in the U.S. for weeks and threatened to derail the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice.

Some supporters of President Trump and his nomination of Kavanaugh attempted to discredit the women and their associates, and the intense scrutiny associated with the saga meant that some who expressed opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination faced a backlash of their own.

That was the case for Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who told MSNBC on 17 September that proceeding with Kavanaugh’s nomination would “forever stain the Supreme Court”:

Going forward with this nomination will cast a shadow and stain on an institution that depends, for its power, on credibility and trust … This nomination would forever stain the Supreme Court in a way that I think may well be irreparable.



As reported by the New York Times, in March 2008 Blumenthal told a group of veterans in Norwalk, Connecticut, that “We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam”:

 
However, Blumenthal has also at times described his military service in more accurate and modest terms. As shown in the MSNBC video above, in March 2010 (two months before the New York Times article) the then-Senate candidate directly contradicted his 2008 statement, saying that “Serving in the United States military gave me a perspective as well even in the reserves, although I did not serve in Vietnam.”

In response to the 18 May 2010 Times article, Blumenthal arranged a press conference for the following day, during which he admitted that he had “misspoken” in the past when describing his military service:

On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that and I take full responsibility. But I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to our country. I served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and I am proud of it.

In response to a question about allegations that he had misrepresented his military record, Blumenthal added:

I may have misspoken — I did misspeak — on a few occasions out of hundreds that I have attended, whether events or ceremonies, and I will not allow anyone to take a few of those misplaced words and impugn my record of service. I regret that I misspoke on those occasions. I take full responsibility for it.

Confirming the authenticity of the 2008 remarks attributed to him by the New York Times, Blumenthal asserted that he had intended to say “since the days that I served during Vietnam,” rather than “since the days that I served in Vietnam”:

A few misplaced words — “in” instead of “during” — totally unintentional.

Blumenthal did not apologize for what he presented as his misstatements about his record. When invited to do so at the press conference, he merely repeated, “I regret that I misspoke and I take full responsibility.”

Blumenthal’s remarks at the May 2010 press conference can be viewed below:

It is true that Blumenthal has made a handful of recorded statements that were false or misleading about his own military service during the Vietnam War and admitted as much after the publication of the New York Times‘ investigation in 2010. However, Blumenthal insisted that these falsehoods were “totally unintentional” and claimed that he had “misspoken” rather than being deliberately or knowingly untruthful.

Blumenthal did not always describe his military service in false or misleading terms. At times he spoke more accurately and modestly about his time in the Marine Reserves, and in a 2010 campaign speech (given before the New York Times report was published), he stipulated that “I did not serve in Vietnam.”

点击诱饵永远不会睡觉。

【宣称】

温迪在 2020 年中期发布了关于其餐厅的 “令人心碎的公告”。

【结论】

大部分是假

【原文】

Clickbait never sleeps, as indicated by an August 2020 article from the website SheFinds.com that continues to draw attention for its headline of “Wendy’s Just Made The Most Heartbreaking Announcement Ever — We Can’t Believe It!” … even though the article references no announcement made by the Wendy’s restaurant chain, nor any information that fans of that eatery would find “heartbreaking.”

What the article referenced was the July 2020 announcement by NPC International, a franchisee that operates numerous outlets of the Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurant chains in the U.S., that the company was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. NPC, the country’s largest Wendy’s franchisee, owns 385 Wendy’s restaurants in the U.S., representing about 6.5% of the total number of Wendy’s in America.

But wasn’t this news “heartbreaking” for Wendy’s fans nonetheless, if the company that owned nearly 400 of those restaurants was about to go out of business? No, not really.

First of all, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing does not mean a company is about to shut down for good. Rather, such filings are a form of protection typically used by struggling businesses in order to remain open and operating while they reorganize their operations and restructure their debts so they can stay afloat.

Second, although a company undergoing Chapter 11 reorganization might sell off or otherwise shed some of its assets — and indeed NPC indicated it would be closing some 300 underperforming Pizza Hut restaurants during its restructuring — NPC made no announcement that they imminently planned to shutter any of the Wendy’s outlets they owned. (News accounts indicated NPC’s financial woes were due more to drop in profitability of its Pizza Hut outlets rather than issues with its Wendy’s franchises.)

As of this writing, NPC had received an offer from Flynn Restaurant Group, the largest restaurant franchisee in the U.S., to buy up their Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurants, but it had also received a bid from a consortium headed by Wendy’s itself to purchase the Wendy’s outlets owned by NPC.

白宫新闻秘书凯利·麦克纳尼的评论与 2016 年大选后总统发表的几项声明相矛盾。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在 2017 年就职时没有获得 “有序” 的过渡。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

On Nov. 20, 2020, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany held a news conference in the White House briefing room. Addressing U.S. President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede his electoral loss to President-elect Joe Biden and his administration’s stonewalling of Biden’s transition team, McEnany said this about Trump’s own transition into power after the 2016 election:

“Also, something that I would note is, just we talked a lot about transfer of power and the election, and it’s worth remembering that this president was never given an orderly transition of power. His presidency was never accepted.”

The claim was at odds with reality.

In 2016, after being defeated by Trump, Hillary Clinton gave a concession speech the day after the election. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead,” she stated in the speech.

Trump in 2016 stated that Clinton contacted him the night of the election in what he described as a “lovely” phone call: “She couldn’t have been nicer. She just said, ‘Congratulations, Donald. Well done.'”

Similarly the General Services Administration, an executive branch agency that is currently under fire for its refusal to hand transition resources off to Biden’s transition team, gave Trump’s team the reins the day after Election Day in 2016.

McEnany’s comments were even contradicted by those made by the president himself during his inauguration address on Jan. 20, 2017:

“Every four years we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power. And we are grateful to President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.”

The transition period between Biden’s election and inauguration has been anything but “orderly.” Trump and his supporters, including McEnany, have echoed a conspiracy theory holding that Trump only lost the election on account of a massive voter fraud scheme involving deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

In an unprecedented move in the modern era, the Trump administration has blocked Biden’s team from accessing millions of taxpayer dollars allocated for the transition process, as well as members of government agencies. Trump’s General Services Administration head Emily Murphy has refused to sign a letter releasing those resources.

众议员伊尔汉·奥马尔一直是反复出现的争议的主题，包括关于她的婚姻和家庭移民史的争议。

【宣称】

伊尔汉·奥马尔与兄弟结婚，以帮助他移民到美国。

【结论】

未经证实

【原文】

In 2016, when it looked like Ilhan Omar stood a good chance of becoming the first Somali-American elected to the Minnesota state House of Representatives, rumors swirled that she had married her brother in an illegal effort to facilitate his obtaining U.S. citizenship status.

Omar did win a seat in Minnesota’s House of Representatives, and two years later she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Like her peer, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Omar is young, outspoken, and champions progressive politics. And also like Ocasio–Cortez, Omar has been a frequent subject of unfounded rumors (particularly ones that have targeted her family and religious background).

The rumor about Omar’s brother that surfaced during her 2016 Minnesota campaign followed her as she assumed her new leadership role representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019:

ILHAN OMAR SHARES HER EXTREMISTS VIEWS IN RARE 2013 VIDEO…

DOCUMENTS SHOW SHE MARRIED HER BROTHER IN IMMIGRATION SCHEME TO ACQUIRE A GREEN CARD…

WHAT ELSE IS SHE HIDING? pic.twitter.com/v3VKm3ysLr

— STRANGER THAN FICTION NEWS (@jonrohnson) February 14, 2019

Given that Omar and her siblings all came to live in the U.S. under identical circumstances as refugees, and that Omar herself became a naturalized U.S. citizen while still a minor, how did one of her siblings end up with such a radically different immigration status that she would have needed to marry him in order to facilitate his U.S. residency application?

Also, if Ahmed Elmi were truly Omar’s brother, why would he have needed to take the drastic step of marrying her in order to secure a path to U.S. citizenship? U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) policies qualify immigrants as eligible to apply for permanent residency status (and later become naturalized citizens) if they are the “spouse of a U.S. citizen” or the “brother or sister of a U.S. citizen.” Why would Omar commit a federal crime and risk a prison sentence (and possibly her own citizenship status) in order to provide her brother with the opportunity to apply for something he would already have been eligible to seek?

Elmi reportedly attended North Dakota State University with Omar between 2009 and 2012. But as a British citizen Elmi could have studied at any university in the European Union or European Economic Area, and in some of those countries his education would have been tuition-free. Was attending school in North Dakota instead such a priority as to merit committing marriage and immigration fraud and risking a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison?

If Elmi was so desperate for U.S. residency/citizenship status that he engaged in a sham “marriage” with his sister in order to seek it, why did he return to England after his split with Omar? And why is there no record of Elmi’s having applied for or obtained such status if that was the whole point of his supposedly “fraudulent” marriage to his alleged sister?

In August 2016, shortly after the rumor originally surfaced, then-U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Andy Luger countered news reports by stating in a letter sent to an attorney retained by Omar that his office was not investigating criminal accusations related to these rumors. We found no evidence this circumstance has changed (although federal prosecutors generally do not publicly comment on investigations in progress or lack thereof).

Right-leaning blogs have made a sport of digging into Ilhan Omar’s personal history, sifting through public records and surfing through social media profiles of people believed to be associated with her, and in so doing they have inevitably surfaced some yet-unanswered questions. Why did Omar’s 2016 campaign literature reference Ahmed Hirsi as her “husband” when she hadn’t yet divorced Ahmed Elmi or married Hirsi? Why did Omar say in her 2017 divorce filing that she’d had no contact with Elmi since June of 2011 when she was seemingly photographed with him in London in 2015? Why has Elmi not put the matter to rest by coming forward and explaining the nature of his relationship with Omar?

Perhaps Ilhan Omar has something untoward related to her marriages that she’s covering up. Or maybe, like countless other people, she’s had a complicated romantic past that she’d rather not discuss publicly. The evidence uncovered thus far isn’t definitive enough to come down on one side or the other.

We sent a list of questions to Omar’s spokesman but did not receive responses prior to publication. We also sent a list of questions to Powerline blogger Scott Johnson, who responded on 25 March 2019 but offered nothing more substantive in support of the claim than inference and supposition.

带有视频的病毒式推文读到：“他们告诉我们进行社交距离并戴口罩！但是正如你所看到的那样… 他们不是！控制我们都是谎言！”

【宣称】

一段视频显示，当选总统乔·拜登在 2020 年与一群无面罩的人一起庆祝生日。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

On Nov. 20, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden turned 78 years old. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta, tweeted a video showing a birthday celebration with Biden:

Wishing our President-Elect @joebiden a VERY Happy Birthday from the great Blue state of Joe’gia! pic.twitter.com/knv2XtcqYq

— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) November 20, 2020

The clarification did not stop the false rumor that the birthday song video was from 2020 from spreading, however:

The video showing a maskless Biden celebrating at a birthday party was from 2019 and was not captured during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

2020 年 11 月，包括特朗普总统的儿子和律师在内的右翼活动分子和评论员以一名选举技术员工为目标。

【宣称】

曾担任多明尼投票系统产品战略和安全主管的埃里克·库默在反法发电话会议中吹嘘 2020 年选举对抗唐纳德·特朗普。

【结论】

未经证实

【原文】

In the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, outgoing President Donald Trump, along with many of his allies and supporters, promoted a slew of unfounded conspiracy theories and allegations that electoral fraud played a telling role in the victory of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

In particular, election denialists focused on Dominion Voting Systems, a company that sells electronic voting machines and software in North America. We have previously addressed several of those claims in detail. In mid-November, Snopes readers asked us to look into one widely shared set of claims surrounding Eric Coomer, who was at one time Dominion’s director of product strategy and security. 

On Nov. 13, the right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin interviewed Colorado businessman and right-wing activist Joe Oltmann, who made a number of allegations against Coomer.

Oltmann claimed he had infiltrated local antifa groups in Colorado, and in September 2020 took part in a telephone conference call. He said during that conversation, he heard a man named Eric speak, and another caller referred to him as “Eric, the Dominion guy.” According to Oltmann, another participant in the call asked “What are we going to do if fucking Trump wins,” to which, according to Oltmann, “Eric” replied “Don’t worry about the election. Trump is not going to win, I made fucking sure of that. Hahaha.”

It’s also not clear whether Coomer’s alleged remarks, if they did take place, were made in earnest, and therefore whether they should be interpreted as proof of election meddling. Oltmann told Malkin he had heard Coomer laughing after allegedly bragging about interfering in the election (“Trump is not going to win, I made fucking sure of that. Hahaha.”)

Furthermore, even if Coomer made the comment in earnest, he might have been lying, either to impress others on the call, to exaggerate his power and influence, or for some other reason. 

Facebook

In mid-November, Oltmann published what appeared to be several screenshots from the Facebook account of an individual named Eric Coomer. We found an account whose profile picture matched that of the account apparently featured in the screenshots, but we have not yet been able to verify that it is owned by Eric Coomer from Dominion. 

Snopes asked Oltmann for any and all relevant screenshots, archived links and URLs relating to what he presented as Coomer’s past pronouncements on Facebook, and in particular any concrete evidence demonstrating that the Facebook account did indeed belong to Eric Coomer from Dominion.

In response, Oltmann told Snopes he had “over 200 pictures and screenshots,” though he didn’t specify whether they constituted the proof we had requested. Oltmann expressed reluctance about providing them to Snopes, and ultimately did not do so in time for publication. If we receive substantive additional evidence, we will update this article accordingly. 

Since we haven’t yet been able to verify the authenticity of the screenshots, or confirm that they were actually posted by Eric Coomer from Dominion, we’re not linking to them in this article. They included a post that contained a purported statement by “Antifa,” but no clear sign that the poster endorsed the statement; a vehemently anti-Trump post from July 2016; a post dismissive of Trump supporters in Texas; posts of YouTube videos for songs whose titles or lyrics expressed antipathy towards police; and a post that strongly criticized a controversial “election integrity” commission set up by Trump to investigate his own unfounded claims of widespread electoral fraud in the 2016 elections.

To reiterate, we don’t know whether Eric Coomer from Dominion created the posts shown in the screenshots Oltmann published. However, even if he did, they would not constitute proof of any impropriety on his part, and certainly would not point towards any election interference on his part. They do indicate that whoever created them is strongly critical of Trump and some of his followers. It might be inadvisable for an employee of an election technology company to articulate those views on social media, but the posts are not, in and of themselves, proof of improper actions. 

“让我们等第 12 修正案的发生！特朗普赢了！”一位特朗普支持者发了推特。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）通过第 12 修正案有明确的胜利之路，因为有证据表明关键波动州存在大规模协调选民欺诈

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

On Nov. 7, The Associated Press projected that Joe Biden would become the 46th president of the United States. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories have plagued social media both before and after Election Day, many purporting to describe widespread voter fraud. However, no evidence exists of any widespread voter irregularities.

In fact, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a Nov. 12 statement that reported the 2020 U.S. presidential election was “the most secure in American history.” The Associated Press reported:

It’s hard to put it any more bluntly: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”

Rejecting President Donald Trump’s persistent claims and complaints, a broad coalition of top government and industry officials is declaring that the Nov. 3 voting and the following count unfolded smoothly with no more than the usual minor hiccups.

It was, they declare, resorting to Trump’s sort of dramatic language, “the most secure in American history.”

On Nov. 17, President Donald Trump fired Christopher Krebs, the director of CISA, the same organization that issued the statement quoted by the Associated Press. Krebs was a Trump appointee.

It’s not expected to come before the House in this manner, but hypothetically, if it did, each state would have one vote, and each vote would depend on whether the state had a majority of Democratic or Republican members. Donald Brand, a professor at College of the Holy Cross, described the situation in The Conversation:

If neither candidate gets to 270 electors due to disputed ballots, the House would have to decide the election.

Though the House has a Democratic majority, such an outcome would almost certainly benefit Trump. Here’s why: In a concession to small states concerned their voices would be marginalized if the House was called upon to choose the president, the founders gave only one vote to each state. House delegations from each state meet to decide how to cast their single vote.

That voting procedure gives equal representation to California – population 40 million – and Wyoming, population 600,000.

No “Path to Victory”

In following the U.S. Constitution, there is no longer a realistic “path to victory” for Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Ledger, Trump attorney Sidney Powell, and others claimed there was evidence of massive and coordinated voter fraud or irregularities in key swing states. However, there has been no evidence presented, and on top of that, CISA said the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”

It appeared that, with Trump’s defeat, his supporters and those who represent him were attempting to find a way for state governments to overturn the will of the people so that he could serve two consecutive terms. For this to happen, several states would need to work in concert to disregard millions of ballots cast by American citizens, instead finding a way for Trump to continue for four more years in the White House, even after losing the popular vote by nearly 6 million votes.

唐纳德·特朗普总统的法律团队举行的新闻发布会是虚假宣传运动的一部分，虚假地指控 2020 年 11 月大选中的大规模选民欺诈。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的个人律师鲁迪·朱利亚尼（Rudy Giuliani）建议在 2020 年投票的法庭案件中使用 1992 年电影《我的表哥文尼》中看到的法律策略。

【结论】

正确的归因

【原文】

On Nov. 19, 2020, outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal legal team held a news conference in which it promoted the falsehood that the 2020 election was beset by massive voter fraud, arguing that Trump should be installed as president even though he lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden.

During the nearly hour-long news conference, Giuliani made a reference to one of Trump’s false narratives: That Republican election monitors weren’t allowed to view the ballot counting process in Michigan, a state Biden won. In so doing, Giuliani referenced the popular 1992 movie “My Cousin Vinny.” In that fish-out-of-water movie, Joe Pesci plays a New York lawyer who goes to rural Alabama to defend his young cousin against murder charges.

Here are Giuliani’s exact words:

We could do like a, did you all watch “My Cousin Vinny”? You know the movie? It’s one of my favorite law movies, cause he comes from Brooklyn. And when the nice lady said she saw, and then he says to her, “How many fingers do I — How many fingers do I got up?” And she says, “Three.”

Giuliani was referencing a scene in the movie when Pesci’s character, Vinny Gambini, tests the eyesight of a myopic witness to prove she couldn’t have seen what she claimed to have seen. Giuliani argued that witnesses monitoring vote counting in Michigan were too far away to see what was happening. It was a claim made by the Trump campaign in an election-related lawsuit, but the lawsuit was withdrawn on Nov. 18, 2020.

Video of Giuliani’s statement can be seen embedded in this tweet posted by Vox journalist Aaron Rupar:

Giuliani's reenacts a scene from "My Cousin Vinny" and then casually accuses Biden of crimes. Unhinged. pic.twitter.com/3RKJeX8cWs

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 19, 2020

虽然我们不确定这种物质到底是什么，但这些图像是真实的。

【宣称】

照片显示，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的私人律师鲁道夫·朱利亚尼（Rudolph Giuliani）在新闻发布会上，染发剂融化了脸。

【结论】

大多是真的

【原文】

On Nov. 19, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was hired by Trump’s reelection campaign to file legal challenges to the results of the 2020 election, gave a conspiracy theory-laden news conference alleging widespread voter fraud. While Giuliani urged viewers to take his evidence-free claims seriously (BBC’s Americas Bureau Chief Paul Danahar called it the “most unsubstantiated diatribe” he had ever witnessed), much of the conversation on social media dealt with some odd images of New York City’s former mayor that reportedly showed dark streaks of hair dye running down his face:

Rudy Giuliani on this date November 19, 2020. Photo by Tom Williams. pic.twitter.com/QLndcTdgxS

— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) November 19, 2020

There are several additional pictures of Giuliani from this news conference with dark streaks running down his face. The following photo, for example, was taken by Sarah Silbiger of The Washington Post:

While these photographs are undoubtedly real, there is some debate over what caused the dark streaks down Giuliani’s face. While most social media users presumed that it was melted hair dye, some hair care experts disagreed. 

David Kholdorov of the Men’s Lounge Barbershop and Spa on Manhattan’s Upper East Side told The New York Times: “Hair dye doesn’t drip like that, unless it’s just been applied.” 

Mirko Vergani, the creative color director at the Drawing Room, said that the streaks may have been caused by mascara that was applied to the sideburns: “Sideburns are more gray than the rest of the head … You can apply mascara to touch the gray side up a bit so it looks more natural.”

Slate also launched an investigation into the strange streaks With the help of Nicole Wingo from Washington D.C.’s Barber of Hell’s Bottom, they concluded that it was likely some sort of pomade with a semi-permanent coloring effect:

WINGO: The hair journey that these guys are on is definitely a wild one. I think something like that is probably the result of a tinted product. I wouldn’t think that that was a demi-permanent or semi-permanent color. I would think it’s a topical product, like a pomade or a tinted gel that got really … gooey.

SLATE: So this is not a product you’re familiar with or use with your clients? Would this be the kind of thing you’d buy at the drug store?

WINGO: This is not something that I’ve seen on my clients. The only products I can think of that offer a color payoff in addition to a styling component are gray products that you see at the drugstore or darker gels or pomades. As far as higher-end things go, I don’t know of any topical products that have pigments in them for just like a day on the town, you know? I would guess that something like this is the $8 to $15 range.

While Giuliani’s streaks stole the show at this news conference, the event also gave reporters plenty to discuss. For instance, Giuliani, at one point, invoked a character with notoriously bad eyesight from the movie “My Cousin Vinny” to make a point about observing poll watchers from an appropriate distance.  As for the rest of Giuliani’s news conference, Fox News reporter Kristin Fisher said that most of what Trump’s personal lawyer alleged was “simply not true”:

外国的神话计算机服务器并没有改变 2020 年美国总统大选的结果。

【宣称】

美国军队在德国夺取的投票系统服务器证明唐纳德·特朗普在选举滑坡中赢得了 2020 年大选。

【结论】

虚假

【原文】

In mid-November 2020, while U.S. President Donald Trump was still contesting the outcome of a presidential election that every credible information source was projecting had been won by challenger Joe Biden, social media users began referencing a purported report from One America News Network (OANN) documenting that Trump had in fact scored a landslide 410-128 electoral vote win over Biden:

This rumor referenced a claim that computer servers belonging to the Dominion Voting Systems and/or Scytl Secure Electronic Voting companies had supposedly been seized by the U.S. Army in Frankfurt, Germany, and the served data showed that Trump had actually won a landslide victory in the Nov. 3 election. The rumor was one no reliable news outlet gave any credence to, but nonetheless, the far-right, pro-Donald Trump OANN cable channel devoted some airtime to it, as narrated by U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas:

The raw data in the server seized by the US military shows Trump won by a landslide 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 410!!!!//t.co/Y7qP2PeIpf @realDonaldTrump @RudyGiuliani @DelRichAnderson @VA_GOP, VOID all results in landslide states and declare the R-candidates winners!! pic.twitter.com/5UpvHZDiEE

— Manga Anantatmula for Congress (R/VA-11) (@Manga4Congress) November 14, 2020

在美国有不止一家投票软件公司运营。

【宣称】

美国当选总统乔·拜登过渡团队成员彼得·内芬格担任 Dominion 投票的 “子公司” Smartmatic 的主席。

【结论】

大部分是假

【原文】

In the wake of the U.S. presidential election in November 2020, a series of unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud were circulated by U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters in an apparent attempt to sow distrust in the integrity of the election and cast doubt on President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Many of these rumors centered on Dominion Voting Systems, a company that provides election software to several counties around the United States.

We have already debunked a number of these rumors (no, Dominion did not delete millions of votes; no, the company is not owned or funded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton; no, a “glitch” did not switch votes from Trump to Biden), but new wrinkles are continuously being added to this conspiracy theory.

One recent rumor claimed that a member of Biden’s transition team, Peter Neffenger, sat on the board of Dominion Voting Systems’ “subsidiary” Smartmatic:

There are a few kernels of truth to this claim. Neffenger, a U.S. Coast Guard admiral and former administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, is a member of one of the agency review teams aiding Biden’s transition to the White House. Neffenger is also the chairman of Smartmatic’s board of directors. However, Smartmatic is a competitor of Dominion, not a subsidiary. 

Eddie Perez, a voting technology expert at the Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Institute, a nonpartisan election technology research and development nonprofit, told The Associated Press that there is no connection between the two companies. 

Perez said: “It appears that Mr. (Rudy) Giuliani is making some wild and unfounded claims that are connecting the dots between companies that appear to be unrelated.”

Smartmatic and Dominion have also both published statements to address these rumors. Both companies noted that they are competitors in the election space and do not have any financial interests in the other’s success. 

In November 2020, Smartmatic published a “response to misinformation” to address some of the claims that had been circulating about the company. Smartmatic wrote:

In the aftermath of the 2020 general election, there has been a great deal of misinformation being circulated about Smartmatic and other companies that provide election technology to voting jurisdictions in the US. We would like to dispel these incorrect statements with facts.

Smartmatic has never owned any shares or had any financial stake in Dominion Voting Systems.

Smartmatic has never provided Dominion Voting Systems with any software, hardware or other technology. The two companies are competitors in the marketplace.

In another article, Smartmatic addressed some additional claims that circulated in the wake of the 2020 election. We reproduced the portions of the text relevant to this topic below:

Does Smartmatic own any other voting machine company?
No.

Has Smartmatic owned any voting machine company in the USA?
Smartmatic owned Sequoia Voting systems and sold it in 2007.

Is Smartmatic’s software used in other company’s voting machines?
No. Smartmatic’s software is not licensed or otherwise used by other companies.

Were Smartmatic voting machines used in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, or North Carolina?
No. None of these states used Smartmatic technology.

Is Smartmatic allied with any political parties?
No. Smartmatic has no ties to political parties or groups in any country. Smartmatic’s employees are required to adhere to a strict ethics code that, among other things, prohibits them from making political donations.

Does George Soros have any involvement in Smartmatic?
No. George Soros has never had any ownership stake in, or involvement with, Smartmatic. This fact was confirmed again by The New York Times on November 3, 2020. 

Dominion, too, has addressed these rumors. 

DOMINION IS NOT, AND HAS NEVER BEEN, OWNED BY SMARTMATIC.
Dominion is an entirely separate company and a fierce competitor to Smartmatic.

Dominion and Smartmatic do not collaborate in any way and have no affiliate relationships or financial ties. Dominion does not use Smartmatic software.

The only associations the companies have ever had were:

• In 2009, Smartmatic licensed Dominion machines for use in the Philippines. The contract ended in a lawsuit.
• In 2010, Dominion purchased certain assets from Sequoia, a private U.S. Company. Smartmatic, a previous owner of Sequoia, pursued legal actions against Dominion.

It should also be noted that, while Neffenger is technically a member of Biden’s transition team, this does not mean that he has landed a future position in the White House. In fact, Neffenger is only listed as a “volunteer,” as opposed to a “detailee” or a “full-time transition employee,” with the advisory team dealing with Homeland Security. Here is how Biden’s “Build Back Better” website describes the purpose of agency review teams:

Agency review teams are responsible for understanding the operations of each agency, ensuring a smooth transfer of power, and preparing for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris and their cabinet to hit the ground running on Day One. These teams are composed of highly experienced and talented professionals with deep backgrounds in crucial policy areas across the federal government. The teams have been crafted to ensure they not only reflect the values and priorities of the incoming administration, but reflect the diversity of perspectives crucial for addressing America’s most urgent and complex challenges.

[…]

Volunteers: Individuals who are volunteering for the Transition in their personal capacity. For these team members, their current or most recent employer is listed (for informational purposes only), and their source of funding is listed as “Volunteer.”

一个广泛分享的模因嘲笑了总统个人律师 2020 年 11 月在联邦法院发表的声明。

【宣称】

鲁迪·朱利亚尼在特朗普竞选法庭案件的口头辩论中发表了引人注目的讲话，涉及 “不透明度”、“米老鼠” 和 “严格审查”。

【结论】

真

【原文】

In the aftermath of the 2020 general election, outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump made several unfounded claims that electoral fraud had played a telling role in Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s projected victory over him. As part of that broader effort to undermine public confidence in the validity of the results, Trump’s campaign pursued lawsuits in several key states, including Pennsylvania. 

In mid-November, attorneys who had been taking part in the campaign’s litigation in federal court in Pennsylvania stepped down and were replaced in part by Trump’s personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. 

On Nov. 17, Judge Matthew Brann oversaw oral arguments at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in the case of Donald Trump for President Inc. vs. [Pennsylvania Secretary of State] Kathleen Boockvar et al. Several noteworthy quotations, attributed to Giuliani, emerged on social media later that day. 

One meme in particular took what it described as quotations from Giuliani and matched them with still images of Charlie Kelly, a character from the FX sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” who has poor literacy skills, low intelligence, and often displays an inability to grasp basic logical concepts. One of the show’s many running jokes about Kelly is that, without any basis or qualifications, he describes himself as an expert in “bird law,” and occasionally tries to pass himself off as an attorney. 

Giuliani responded as follows:

Your honor, we’re not asking that 6.8 million votes be cancelled, we’re asking that the votes that were counted without inspection — which are approximately 680,000 votes — be deemed null and void, as you would with any violation of the absentee ballot requirement… In this particular case, your honor, it was a plan that was carried out in two different jurisdictions [Allegheny County and Philadelphia County], not the others, to make certain that, uniformly, Republicans got no opportunity to observe. The conduct was egregious, the conduct was premeditated… The remedy is really required and is draconian, because their conduct was egregious. Who ever heard of 600,000, 700,000 absentee ballots not being examined? It’s never happened in American history… As far as we’re concerned, your honor, those ballots could have been for Mickey Mouse. We have no idea. 

Giuliani’s apparent confusion over the term “strict scrutiny” was a particular source of concern, since it described what should be a fairly basic legal and constitutional concept. Roughly speaking, “strict scrutiny” is a standard used by courts to decide whether a certain law is constitutional. It means that an especially high standard of justification is required any time the state seeks to curtail a fundamental right or to engage in or facilitate some form of discrimination, and the state has the burden of proving that its actions or policies are not unconstitutional.

Strict scrutiny is the most stringent of three standards of judicial review used to determine constitutionality, with “intermediate scrutiny” being less stringent, and “rational basis” review being less stringent still. 

At one point in the oral arguments, Brann asked the Trump campaign’s legal team for their opinion on what standard of review he should use in the case at hand. The following exchange ensued:

Brann: What standard of review should I apply, and why? What standard of review should I apply in this case —
Giuliani: On a motion to dismiss? I mean I think the normal one, which is that you, you have to deem the factual allegations to be correct, and even if they are correct, you have to find that there’s no merit, no legal merit, no legal theory on which we can get relief. 
Brann: Well let me ask you then, are you arguing strict scrutiny should apply here?
Giuliani: No, the normal scrutiny should apply. If we had alleged fraud, yes. But this is not a fraud case.
Brann: …So if that’s the case, why don’t Secretary Boockvar’s and the counties satisfy the standard of review you’re talking about? If it’s not strict scrutiny, and it’s the standard of review you’re implying, why don’t their actions satisfy this?
Giuliani: I’m sorry, I don’t really understand the question, your honor. 
Brann: Well this is how I would look at it. I would think that it’s a standard of review of strict scrutiny, potentially. You’re not sure that that’s the case. I’m not imposing my —
Giuliani: Maybe I don’t understand what you mean by “strict” —
Brann: Well, for strict scrutiny to apply, a fundamental right needs to be burdened, as I understand it. So how do the counties or Secretary Boockvar, on behalf of the commonwealth, burden the plaintiffs’ right to vote? How do they burden the right to vote?