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Truth or Fake is a fact-checking rendez-vous in association with the FRANCE 24 Observers. Our content focuses on false images circulating online and how to identify them. Monday to Thursday at 8:45pm and 10:20pm Paris time.
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33-year-old Brazil-born Bruna Ferreira was detained this week by ICE officials whilst on the school run to pick up her child, the son she shares with the brother of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Whilst the Department of Homeland Security calls Ferreira a "criminal illegal alien", her family and lawyer say there's no proof of a criminal record, nor any illegal status. Karoline Leavitt has declined to comment. Vedika Bahl goes through what we know in this edition of Truth or Fake.
In a post viewed over 43 million times, US conservative influencer Candace Owens has accused the French presidential couple of paying for her assassination. She also accused France of being complicit in Charlie Kirk's murder, amongst a slew of other conspiracy theories. But with little factual foundation, these accusations remain just that: conspiracy theories. Vedika Bahl debunks them in this edition of Truth or Fake.
To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Vedika Bahl talks through the rise in misogynistic propaganda online, and dismantles some of the popular masculinist arguments against women.
Elon Musk's X has rolled out a new location feature: the app now shows the country or region that the account is based in. This has triggered outrage, confusion and ridicule on the platform, particularly as many political accounts – namely prominent MAGA accounts – were not even listed within the United States. The new feature also meant the Department of Homeland Security was accused of being operated from Israel. Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.
Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok says it has disabled automatic translation on Hebrew posts, citing a surge in mistranslated expressions that made content appear more inflammatory to those who do not speak the language. The move effectively prevents non-Hebrew speakers from easily accessing translated versions of such content, and X users reacted with fury. But is Grok’s claim credible, given its long history – and ongoing pattern – of spreading false and offensive content? Vedika Bahl explains in this edition of Truth or Fake.
A series of French newsrooms – including France 24 – have been targeted and impersonated by a Russian disinformation campaign. The operation capitalised on the recent 10th anniversary of the 2015 Paris attacks, to sow division and discredit President Emmanuel Macron. The propaganda machine, named “Operation Matryoshka”, is one we have seen and been targeted by before, as Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.
An old photo of current US President Donald Trump and former US president Bill Clinton has gone viral, alongside one of Jeffrey Epstein's released emails that has attracted scrutiny. The photo is not as compromising as social media users would have it – but many have been left questioning who the "Bubba" is that Trump is allegedly "blowing" in the email. We take a closer look in this edition of Truth or Fake.
As the COP30 summit proceeds, Donald Trump and others continue to share the claim that 100,000 trees in the Amazon rainforest were chopped down to make way for a highway to the UN climate conference's host city, Belem. But the claim is misleading, as we explain in this edition of Truth or Fake.
On the tenth anniversary of the deadliest terror attacks France has seen since World War II, we take a closer look at the major role social media played that tragic evening. From piecing together the initial timeline, to hashtags for finding shelter and global messages of solidarity, social media shaped how we understand the 2015 Paris attacks. Vedika Bahl explains in this special edition of Truth or Fake.
The Indian government says it's treating the explosion outside the capital's historic Red Fort as a "terrorist incident", after at least 12 people were killed and scores more wounded. But visuals purporting to show the blast online are being misrepresented, often using old and unrelated images from elsewhere. It's a move often seen during tragedies due to panic and in a bid to drum up engagement. Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted this Tuesday that the situation in the embattled town of Pokrovsk remains difficult. Meanwhile, viral clips are suggesting that Kyiv is now illegally sending ever-younger men to fight against their will. In reality, these videos have been AI-generated. We take a closer look in this edition of Truth or Fake.
The UN climate talks opened this Monday in Brazil, with world leaders set to discuss new ways to tackle global warming. Meanwhile, the spread of climate disinformation has doubled since July. Among the viral claims circulating online: that even Bill Gates is now denying climate change. In reality, the tech billionaire published a memo calling for a "strategic pivot", away from short-term emissions targets and towards climate adaptation. We take a closer look in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Following reported mass killings at the end of October by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the besieged city of El-Fasher, internet users shared a screenshot from Google Earth purporting to show the site of a massacre. But according to satellite image analysts, this image is dated and in fact depicts livestock. We spoke directly to the expert involved in the fact-check in this episode of Truth or Fake.
Billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk has questioned the legitimacy of Zohran Mamdani's momentous win in the New York City mayoral race. He called the ballots a "scam" for putting rival candidate Andrew Cuomo's name lower down the list, with the names of Mamdani and Republican Curtis Sliwa appearing twice. But New York's ballots followed the state's election law, as Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.
New Yorkers are choosing their new mayor, and 34-year-old Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani has built a momentous campaign that could see him become the first Muslim – and first millenial – mayor. But Mamdani's rise has come with consistent unfounded accusations from his both opponents and the White House, calling him a Communist, an anti-Semite and a terrorist sympathiser. Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.
Just hours after news broke of a mass knife attack on London-bound train, an AI-generated video appeared online claiming to show the scene onboard the train and the platform as the train came to an emergency stop. Vedika Bahl fact-checks the images in Truth or Fake.
A Times of London story which supposedly quoted former New York mayor Bill de Blasio criticising the Democratic candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, was deleted after it emerged that de Blasio had never made those comments. The British newspaper then blamed the error on their journalist being duped by "an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor". So who is the de Blasio imposter and how did The Times end up publishing this fake news story?
From shark videos to news reports, AI is taking fake disaster content to a new level. If you have opened TikTok or X in the past 48 hours you may well have seen AI-generated photos and videos of Hurricane Melissa, as the storm blasted across the Caribbean. The flood of disinformation prompted Jamaican authorities to issue warnings. Emerald Maxwell takes a closer look in this edition of Truth or Fake.
In this edition of Truth or Fake we look at Elon Musk’s new website Grokipedia, which he has just launched to compete with Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that he and others on the American right have accused of left-wing bias. Musk touts AI-generated Grokipedia as unbiased, but is it really?
As 10 defendants go on trial in Paris for allegedly cyber-harassing the French first lady, Vedika Bahl takes a look at the timeline of how unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about her gender began to circulate, how the claims exploded globally after far-right US commentator Candace Owens got involved, and how the Macrons have pushed back with legal action.
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