Misinformation Watch News and Blog Posts

Almost immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic began, people speculated about how it started. Most of this focused on China, where the pandemic began, and specifically on the city of Wuhan.

The Guardian claims it's “fiercely independent” and "without a billionaire bankrolling" it, yet it's owned by an endowment fund valued at $1.5 billion.

The New York Times reported Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. days after the 2024 presidential election.

A graph from ZeroHedge (Lean Right bias) posted on X circulated to tens of millions of people, purporting that in the 2012, 2016, and 2024 presidential elections, Democrats only received about 66 million votes in each presidential election, but received 81 million votes in 2020. The graph is misleading and implies the 2024 vote count is complete, which it’s not.

A graph from ZeroHedge (Lean Right bias) posted on X circulated to tens of millions of people, purporting that in the 2012, 2016, and 2024 presidential elections, Democrats only received about 66 million votes in each presidential election, but received 81 million votes in 2020. The graph is misleading and implies the 2024 vote count is complete, which it’s not.

With Israel and Hamas at war, conflicting, confusing, and misinformed reports are spreading quickly. Here are some major storylines that need a bit of clarification.

ProPublica tied the deaths of two women in Georgia to an abortion-restricting state law. Was this accurate?

The United Nations recently updated how it shows data on the Palestinian death toll in Gaza, making some figures appear to decrease by nearly half. Here’s a breakdown of the numbers and some contradictory and misleading narratives to be aware of.

Do migrants really commit crimes at a higher rate than citizens? Does the data support the claim, or is it misinformation? What explains the partisan divide in perception?

In a recent Instagram post, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden “colluded with CNN to rig the debate rules and block my participation so they don’t have to answer tough questions about the lockdowns, the $34 trillion national debt, the chronic disease epidemic, or the toxic polarization that drives their campaigns.”