Two sets of tweets from President Donald Trump show the cracks in Twitter’s evolving policy on policing false information. For the first time ever, the social media platform added a cautionary flag to a Trump tweet about election fraud. But a baseless tweet alleging murder, Twitter left untouched. Trump’s May 26 posts about rampant election […]
Fact-checking your friends and family on social media is not as weird as you think — and it could help slow the spread of misinformation about the coronavirus. A recent survey found that 34% of people reported seeing someone else get corrected for sharing about COVID-19 on social media. Nearly one-fourth of respondents said they […]
“The Week in Fact-checking” compiles short summaries of our best work; the links will take you to our full reports. Want this report early and via email? Sign up here. This week: Voting by mail in 2020 … Pelosi wrong about Trump’s weight … Pants on Fire for Trump on voting by mail … Stacey […]
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump and his allies have ratcheted up attacks against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. One line of attack isn’t new: a Chinese business deal involving Biden’s son Hunter. Trump is giving it additional weight amid his criticism of China for its early handling of the coronavirus. In an interview with […]
As President Donald Trump threatened states that want to increase mail balloting, a claim is circulating that Oregon, where all voting is by mail, denied Republicans the right to vote in partisan races on May 19. A headline on an article on The Gateway Pundit, a conservative website says: “Huge Scandal: Oregon Changes Hundreds Of […]
With the U.S. consumed by the coronavirus, President Donald Trump has taken steps to purge his administration of several independent government watchdogs. The push has Democrats and government ethics experts saying he’s undermining a vital oversight apparatus. On May 15, Trump announced his intent to fire State Department Inspector General Steve Linick and replaced acting […]
About half of voters in Lee County, Fla., decided to cast their votes by mail in the past two statewide elections. Elections supervisor Tommy Doyle expects that to climb to 70% in November due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. Doyle, a Republican in a conservative-leaning county, home to Fort Myers, has encouraged voters to […]
Recent claims by President Trump, that voting by mail leads to fraud and hurts Republicans, have put a spotlight on the topic. They’ve also inspired pushback from Democratic leaders in California, where generations of voters have used “absentee ballots,” and 72 percent of all ballots cast in the state’s March primary were by mail. On […]
PolitiFact has been fact-checking claims about the coronavirus and COVID-19 since it first appeared. Months later, we know much more about the virus and the disease than we did. But there are still confounding areas of uncertainty. Basic facts about the virus need to be hedged with caveats and warnings that our knowledge is limited […]
“The Week in Fact-checking” compiles short summaries of our best work; the links will take you to our full reports. Want this report early and via email? Sign up here. This week: COVID on a plane … Pelosi wrongly blames GOP for Illinois budget problems … Obama not first to criticize his successor … Is […]
Protests calling for state and federal governments to reopen have become a source of misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. A May 7 clip on Facebook shows a doctor giving a six-minute speech about California’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. In it, the doctor makes several misleading claims about the severity of the virus and the […]
Most of the time, few Americans give much thought to “unmasking,” a practice whereby senior officials can request the identities of Americans who show up in U.S. intelligence reports and intercepts. But Republicans have begun using it as a weapon against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. On May 13, two Republican senators, Ron Johnson of […]