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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

Factcheck LabPolitics & government

美國以垃圾訊息影響或干預其他國家的輿論

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤訊息

The claim concerned a circulating subtitled clip said to show former U.S. President Barack Obama explaining how the United States could influence or interfere with other countries’ public opinion. The review traced the clip to Obama’s April 21, 2022, speech at Stanford University, at an event on challenges to democracy in the digital information realm. It compared the circulating video with the speech transcript and recordings of the event, locating the excerpt at about 31:11–31:51 of the speech. That excerpt did describe flooding a country’s public sphere with misleading material and eroding people’s trust. But the review found that the viral subtitles changed the meaning of the closing line: Obama said “the game’s won,” not “we’ve won.” The review also noted that he did not refer to “we” or to the United States in the excerpt itself. The surrounding speech supplies the key context. Immediately beforehand, Obama discussed authoritarian regimes and strongmen using social-media platforms against groups they dislike, and autocrats such as Putin using those platforms against democratic countries they consider a threat. He then described how distrust can weaken democratic institutions. The review concluded that the excerpt was about authoritarian actors spreading false information to affect democracies, not the United States using the tactic against other countries. It found that the clip’s mistranslation and removal of context distorted his meaning.

dpaPolitics & government

Robert Habeck wirbt für ein politisches System wie in China.

Publisher’s rating: Der Video-Schnipsel ist aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen und verkehrt die eigentliche Aussage Habecks in ihr Gegenteil.

The claim arose from a 1-minute-6-second social-media excerpt of a 43-minute conversation between Robert Habeck and author Richard David Precht. The full conversation was broadcast by ZDF on December 17, 2018, and was also available on YouTube. The excerpt was presented as if Habeck’s words endorsed China’s more efficient political system. [S1: “In einem Facebook-Post wird ein 1:06 Minuten dauernder Ausschnitt aus einem insgesamt 43 Minuten langen Gespräch verbreitet, das der Buchautor Richard David Precht mit dem damaligen Co-Bundesvorsitzenden der Grünen, Habeck, führte. Das Gespräch wurde am 17.12.2018 vom ZDF verbreitet und ist auch auf YouTube in voller Länge abrufbar.”] The review explains that the clip’s editing makes Habeck’s “Ja, das wollen wir” appear to refer to the Chinese model. In the full exchange, however, Habeck first asks whether people want to preserve a democratic system based on self-determination and participation, or instead move toward centralized systems. He then describes China’s lack of opposition and public participation, and says the choice must be made on values rather than economic efficiency. [S1: “In dem Video-Ausschnitt wird dann mittels Bild und Ton immer wieder der Eindruck betont, als habe Habeck mit seinem Satz «Ja, das wollen wir» das angeblich effizientere System Chinas gemeint.”] [S1: “Tatsächlich bezieht sich Habeck mit dem «Ja, das wollen wir» auf die erste von ihm aufgeworfene Frage «Will man daran festhalten, dass ein demokratisches System, das im Grunde dem Kern von Selbstbestimmung und auch Beteiligung von Menschen verpflichtet ist, noch eine Chance hat?».”] The decisive omitted context is the sentence immediately after that “yes”: Habeck says that preserving democracy requires keeping pace with technological change and corporate power. The review also points to his remarks elsewhere in the conversation: he says democratic decision-making can lag behind challenges, but rejects giving up on democratic means and says he must believe democracy has a chance. Together, those passages show that the clip’s framing reverses the position conveyed in the longer conversation. [S1: “Das geht unter anderem daraus hervor, dass er an das «Ja, das wollen wir» den - in der entstellten Version weggeschnittenen - Satz anschließt: «Dann müssen wir aber den Wettlauf mit der technischen Entwicklung aufnehmen und auch mit der Macht der Konzerne.»”] [S1: “Wenig später (Minute 11:30) sagt Habeck auf die Frage Precht, welche schnellen und radikalen Schritte denn nun notwendig seien: «Nun ist das (die Politik) ja mein Beruf. Und wenn ich jetzt sagen würde, wir müssen einfach aufgeben und sagen, das ist einfach nicht mehr zu steuern oder jedenfalls nicht mehr mit demokratischen Mitteln, dann kann ich gleich morgen meinen Rücktritt einreichen.”]

FACTLYPolitics & government

Video showing an Army aspirant standing up to the Police during the protests against Agnipath scheme in Bihar

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show an Army aspirant standing up to police during protests against the Agnipath military recruitment scheme in Bihar. FACTLY’s review says the footage does not show that event: it identifies the visuals as coming from Kashmir in 2021 and says they are unrelated to the Bihar protests. The review’s conclusion is that the video was falsely presented as footage of an Agnipath protest. To check the video, the review says it performed a reverse image search on screenshots and found a video with similar visuals on the Associated Press’s official YouTube channel, AP Archive. That channel had uploaded the video in August 2021, supporting the review’s finding that the footage predated the Bihar protests. The review describes the earlier scene as a Muharram procession in Kashmir. It says police dispersed people with tear gas and warning shots, and that the visuals showed a Kashmiri Shiite Muslim carrying knives used for self-flagellation trying to attack a policeman. This account differs materially from the claim’s setting and description of the person in the video.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: annamalai not asked indian oil to supply cooking oil for amma canteens

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined a social-media claim that BJP Tamil Nadu leader Annamalai had asked the state government to obtain cooking oil for Amma canteens from Indian Oil. It says a reader submitted the claim through the outlet’s WhatsApp chatbot and that similar posts were circulating on Facebook. The review’s stated conclusion was that Annamalai had not made the reported request. To check the claim, the reviewers looked for a corresponding post on Annamalai’s Twitter pages and for news coverage reporting that he had made the request. They say they found neither. The review also reports that they contacted the BJP IT wing and obtained confirmation. These are the specific checks described in the supplied text; it does not provide the identity of the person contacted or a record of that confirmation. On the evidence described, the claim is unsupported: the review reports no matching post or media coverage and cites its inquiry to the party’s IT wing as additional confirmation. The excerpt does not identify the original social-media post or reproduce the response from the BJP IT wing, so those details cannot be independently assessed from the supplied material.

dpaPolitics & government

Op deze video zijn ministers uit Sri Lanka te zien die worden vernederd.

Publisher’s rating: De bewering is fout. Op de video zijn geen ministers te zien, maar gevangenen uit een nabijgelegen gevangenis. Over hoe zij in deze situatie verzeild raakten, worden de Sri Lankaanse autoriteiten het niet eens.

The video circulated with a claim that the shirtless men kneeling in a street were Sri Lankan ministers being made to pay for government corruption. The investigation identifies the men instead as prisoners from a nearby prison. It also distinguishes that identification from the unresolved question of why the prisoners ended up in the crowd: accounts of that circumstance differed, and the review says it had not been established with certainty. To trace the footage, the fact-checker used InVID to search for matching images and found the video in reporting about the incident and on social media. A journalist posted it at about 1:30 a.m. local time on May 10, and a Sri Lankan news site also shared it; the review reports that both identified the men as prisoners, without describing them as ministers. This provides a contemporaneous trail for the same footage and claim, rather than relying only on the wording attached to later shares. The review also reports that India Today had a local journalist translate the clip, and that the men identify themselves as prisoners from Watareka Open Prison Camp. A Sinhala-language BBC article supplied a translation with the same identification. The review places the footage amid protests that had been taking place since April, but notes that this background does not settle how the prisoners came to be on the street. A prison spokesperson said their bus was attacked on May 9 while returning them from work; the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka opened an investigation into what happened. Thus, the evidence supports identifying the men as prisoners, while leaving the immediate events around their appearance in the crowd unresolved.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: bjp not ruling Jharkhand state

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined social-media posts that described Jharkhand as a BJP-ruled state and blamed its government for the police shooting in Ranchi. It identifies the incident as a protest that turned violent after controversy over remarks about the Prophet Muhammad; two people were killed by police gunfire. The posts tied the claim to a photograph and said the shooting occurred on June 10, 2022. The review’s specific check was whether the BJP governed Jharkhand at that time—not whether the shooting happened or who was responsible for it.