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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Culture & entertainment fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about culture & entertainment. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,169 published reviews in this topic

Fact CrescendoCulture & entertainment

Claim: Science fiction book cover being shared as narasimhavarman ii carved this art in a temple

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

Fact Crescendo investigated a social-media image said to show a computer and keyboard carved by Narasimhavarman II at the Thalagirīśvarar temple in Villupuram district. The review distinguishes the claim about the image from the separate historical point that Narasimhavarman II built the temple: it says it does not dispute that he built it, but questions whether the image is a temple carving. To check the image, the investigators used reverse-image search. They report that the search identified it as the cover of a book being sold on Amazon, rather than a photograph of a Pallava-era temple sculpture. On that basis, the review concludes that the image was misrepresented as an ancient carving. The supplied excerpt does not name the book or provide the image-search results themselves, so those details cannot be independently assessed from this evidence alone.

dpaCulture & entertainment

"Die Toleranz wird ein solches Niveau erreichen, dass intelligenten Menschen das Denken verboten wird, um Idioten nicht zu beleidigen" ist ein Zitat von Fjodor Dostojewski.

Publisher’s rating: Es ist nirgendwo belegt, dass dieser Satz jemals von Dostojewski geschrieben oder gesagt wurde. Vielmehr spricht alles dagegen, dass sich der Schriftsteller so über die Toleranz äußerte.

The claim concerns a sentence about tolerance that circulates in German-language social media graphics and is attributed to Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. The dpa review identifies the wording as “Die Toleranz wird ein solches Niveau erreichen, dass intelligenten Menschen das Denken verboten wird, um Idioten nicht zu beleidigen” and says it appears in a Sharepic attributed to him. The investigation asked whether that attribution is supported by evidence. The review reports that Christoph Garstka of the German Dostoevsky Society said the quotation could not be found in Dostoevsky’s works and that the wording was falsely attributed to the author. Garstka also gave a chronological reason to doubt the attribution: the Russian term for tolerance, “tolerantnost,” is documented in the language only from the 1890s, whereas Dostoevsky died in 1881. The review additionally reports that quote researcher Gerald Krieghofer considered the attribution false and that the quote was not found on a Russian website containing Dostoevsky’s works. The evidence described does not establish who first wrote the sentence. Instead, it traces its circulation: a Russian-language website posted the wording in 2019 without attributing it to Dostoevsky, and a Reddit user that year asked for an English translation without naming an author. The dpa review says the wording had been circulating in German with the Dostoevsky attribution at least since mid-2021. Its evidence therefore supports rejecting the claimed authorship, while leaving the sentence’s original author unidentified.

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

Open mouth and visible fangs of the lions are recent additions to the National Emblem. Older versions of the National Emblem have lions with closed mouths and no visible fangs

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim arose from a social-media collage contrasting a National Emblem with closed-mouth lions against the large emblem inaugurated on the new Parliament building. The review identifies the left-hand image as the emblem on the Karnataka Assembly building and the right-hand image as the Parliament sculpture. It notes that the comparison therefore juxtaposed two different depictions, rather than establishing that the older image represented the emblem’s original form. To check whether open mouths and visible fangs were new, the review examined images of Ashoka’s Sarnath Lion Capital, the ancient model from which the Indian National Emblem is adapted. It reports that those lions have open mouths and visible fangs, and says another Ashokan pillar’s Lion Capital also depicts a lion with an open mouth and visible fangs. The review further points to the emblem image in the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005—passed before the Modi government—as showing lions with open mouths. It says the Parliament sculpture’s size and the low angle of the circulated photograph could make the mouths appear wider; in a front-facing view, it describes the lions as similar to those on Ashoka’s capital. Thus, the evidence in the review contradicts the claim that open mouths and visible fangs were recent additions, while the collage’s differing locations and viewing angles provide important context.

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

Video of a foreign couple dancing to Lord Krishna song

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a circulated video that appears to show a foreign couple dancing in Indian attire to a Lord Krishna song. FACTLY identifies the skaters as Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White, and says the footage is from their performance at the 2010 AT&T U.S. figure skating championship. Its account distinguishes the video’s soundtrack from the original performance: the dancers performed to Bollywood songs, while the devotional song was digitally added to the footage. To check the video’s provenance, the review says a reverse image search of screenshots led to a longer YouTube version uploaded in 2011. That version was described as Davis and White’s final performance at the 2010 championship and, according to FACTLY, showed them dancing to Bollywood songs rather than devotional music. The review also says that searching with relevant keywords brought up news reports identifying songs performed at the championship, including “Kajra Re,” “Silsila Ye Chahat Ka,” and “Dola Re Dola.” FACTLY further reports that the pair performed to the same Bollywood songs at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Its conclusion is that the viral visuals are from the 2010 U.S. championship performance, with the Lord Krishna song added afterward—not evidence of the couple performing to that devotional song. The review says it found no visuals of the pair dancing to Indian devotional songs.

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

Request the Modi government to unearth the time capsule buried in front of the Red Fort by former PM Indira Gandhi in 1973

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post asks the Modi government to unearth a time capsule that it says Indira Gandhi buried in front of the Red Fort in 1973, and alleges that she hid important public documents inside. The review confirms the burial but finds that the capsule had already been exhumed decades before the post’s request: Indira Gandhi buried the capsule, named Kalpaatra, on 15 August 1973, and the Janata government removed it on 08 December 1977. The review reports that the capsule’s contents were made available for MPs to inspect in the Parliament library and were discussed in Parliament. It also says the contents have not been made public, and that there is little information about what happened to the capsule after its exhumation. Thus, the capsule’s history and contents are not fully documented in the excerpt, but the specific request to unearth the original capsule is misleading because the review says it was already dug up in 1977. The article also describes a 2012 attempt to obtain information about the contents. Writer and academician Madhu Purnima Kishwar sought records from the PMO through an RTI application; the PMO said it had no record. After Kishwar approached the Central Information Commission, the commissioner directed the PMO to search again and, if needed, consult the National Archives and the ASI. The excerpt does not say that this search established what the capsule contained or where it is now.

dpaCulture & entertainment

Un concours de Moustache.

Publisher’s rating: Ce n’est pas du tout une "excellente nouvelle", mais une arnaque, répétitive, que la dpa a souvent dénoncée (ici et ici, notamment). Ce genre de concours "n’est pas dans les habitudes de la maison", nous confirme l’entreprise Moustache. Les escrocs tentent d’extorquer sinon de l’argent, du moins les données privées de leurs victimes.

The claim concerns a Facebook giveaway presented as a chance to win 45 electric bicycles from Moustache, a French bicycle brand. The post, under the name “Vélo Moustach,” said the bicycles could not be sold because they had been used for display in stores. The dpa review identifies that specific promotion as fraudulent, rather than an ordinary brand contest. [S1: “45 vélos électriques de la célèbre marque française,

Fact CrescendoCulture & entertainment

Claim: annamalai not made this statement on radha ravi

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined a social-media news card presented as if it had been published by Junior Vikatan. The card attributed to Annamalai a statement that remarks by “low-class speakers like Radha Ravi” should not be taken seriously, following controversy over Radha Ravi referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah as “accused.” The review says the card was shared on Facebook on July 5, 2022, by an account named Stalin Venkatesh, and that others were sharing it too. Fact Crescendo reports that the card’s design and Tamil font did not resemble Junior Vikatan’s usual news cards. It checked the publication’s Facebook page for cards posted on July 5 and found no matching card. It then sent the disputed image to the person responsible for Junior Vikatan’s social-media and digital section, who confirmed that it was fake. The review also says it searched Annamalai’s social-media pages and found no such statement, and that no news report carrying it had appeared. On the evidence described, the review concluded that the purported Junior Vikatan card was fabricated and that the attribution to Annamalai was false. Its printed result is “False.”