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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Politics & government fact checks

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

12,749 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYPolitics & government

Visuals showing Donald Trump’s daughter visit to Owaisi hospita

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The video was presented as showing Donald Trump’s daughter visiting an Owaisi-managed hospital in Hyderabad. FACTLY identifies the woman in the footage as Brianna Cook, an American businesswoman and founder of IoTeedom, rather than either of Trump’s daughters, Ivanka or Tiffany. The review says Cook was part of Ivanka Trump’s delegation to the Global Entrepreneur Summit, held in Hyderabad from 28 to 30 November 2017, and visited Princesses Esra hospital, managed by the Owaisi brothers, on 1 December 2017. The distinction matters: Cook’s connection to Ivanka’s delegation did not make her Trump’s daughter. [S1] The review describes checks of the woman’s identity and the video’s provenance. It says FACTLY compared images of Ivanka and Tiffany with the woman in the viral clip, and found longer footage from which the clip was extracted. In that footage, the woman introduces herself as “Brain Cook from United States, with the delegation of Mrs. Ivanka Trump.” The longer video was uploaded on YouTube on 1 December 2017. These details support the review’s identification of the visitor as a delegation member, not Trump’s daughter. [S1] The chronology further separates Cook’s visit from Ivanka Trump’s travel: FACTLY reports that Ivanka left Hyderabad on 29 November, before Cook visited the hospital on 1 December. It also says a correspondent for Sharp Indians TV News & Entertainment confirmed Cook’s hospital visit to AFP, and that local Hyderabad media reported her meeting with Akbaruddin Owaisi on 30 November. Taken together, the review’s identification evidence and timeline show why the footage could depict a visitor associated with Ivanka’s delegation without showing Trump’s daughter at the hospital. [S1]

FACTLYPolitics & government

Recent dance videos of Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut while celebrating the collapse of the MVA government in Maharashtra

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined social-media videos presented as recent footage of Sanjay Raut dancing to celebrate the collapse of Maharashtra’s Maha Vikas Aghadi government. It distinguishes two videos and reports that the first does not show Raut: the dancer is Laxman Bhadarge, a head constable in Parbhani, Maharashtra. For the first video, the review says it found the same footage circulating with a similar description in 2019. It cites a December 5, 2019, Sarkarnama Facebook post identifying Bhadarge and reports that multiple news articles from 2019 likewise named him. The review also recounts that, when contacted by The Quint’s fact-check team in 2020, Bhadarge said the video was from November 2019 and showed him at a friend’s son’s wedding. That account places the footage before the claimed celebration of the government’s collapse. The second video is treated less definitively. The review says reverse-image searching screenshots led to a similar video posted by news portals, which described the dancer as Raut’s duplicate; it also notes similar dance steps in the two clips. It explicitly says it could not confirm when the second video was shot. Its conclusion about that clip rests on those comparisons, rather than an established date or direct identification. Overall, the review’s central finding is that the videos do not establish that Raut was dancing to celebrate the government’s collapse.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Photo of Supreme Court Judge JB Pardiwala with Sonia Gandhi

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post claimed that a photograph with Sonia Gandhi showed Supreme Court Judge J.B. Pardiwala and also said he had previously been a Congress MLA. FACTLY’s review identifies the man in the photograph as former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan instead. It reports that the image was taken at Rashtrapati Bhavan in January 2007, when Balakrishnan was congratulated on his appointment as Chief Justice of India. The review describes two image checks: a reverse image search found a similar photograph in a 2007 blog identifying Balakrishnan, and a search for relevant keywords located a similar image on Getty Images. FACTLY says the Getty caption places the photograph at the congratulatory event at Rashtrapati Bhavan. These findings connect the image to Balakrishnan and an event years before Pardiwala’s elevation to the Supreme Court. The review also distinguishes Pardiwala from his father, Barjorji Cowasji Pardiwala. It says J.B. Pardiwala was elevated to the Supreme Court on 9 May 2022 and was never a Congress MLA; his father had been elected from Valsad on a Congress ticket and served as Speaker of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly. Thus, the post appears to conflate the identity of the person in the photograph with a separate fact about Pardiwala’s father.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Celebrations of the people of Aurangabad after it was renamed to Shambajinagar by the Government of Maharashtra

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show people in Aurangabad celebrating after the city was renamed Shambajinagar. FACTLY reports that the footage instead shows the unveiling of a statue of Chatrapathi Shivaji Maharaj in Aurangabad, an event it dates to 18 February 2022. To investigate, FACTLY says it searched screenshots from the circulating video with Yandex reverse image search and found a Twitter post. After translating that post, it identified the footage as relating to the unveiling of a 21-foot statue. Keyword searches also led to a YouTube video that FACTLY says matched the circulated clip. The comparison provided by the review is specific: the first seven seconds of the circulating video match footage from 1:50 to 1:57 in the YouTube video, while the remaining 23 seconds consist of other clips from that video. FACTLY also says a screenshot from the YouTube video matches the first frame of the Twitter post. This evidence ties the footage to the statue ceremony, not to celebrations of the renaming.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaPolitics & government

මේ මොහෙතේ ලංකාවට සහයෝගය ලබා නොදෙන බවට ජපානයෙන් තීරණයක්?

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The review examines social-media posts claiming that Japan would not provide financial assistance to Sri Lanka at that time because aid might be wasted through mismanagement. The posts attributed this position to Japan’s ambassador, Hideaki Mizukoshi, at a meeting with Tamil National Alliance members, while suggesting that Japan might reconsider assistance later. The investigation traces the claim to reporting that relied on a statement by former journalist Kavinthan Shammugaraj, who said he had been told about the ambassador’s remarks by PLOTE leader D. Sitharthan. The review also reports that the Daily Mirror editor said the newspaper had reliable sources, while placing responsibility for the accuracy of its reporting on the paper.