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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

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaPolitics & government

විපක්ෂ නායකගේ පෞද්ගලික ලේකම් ඉල්ලා අස් වූයේ කුමන හේතුවක් සඳහා ද?

Publisher’s rating: Explainer

The investigation examined social media posts claiming that Ravi Jayawardena, Sajith Premadasa’s personal secretary, was resigning because he could not work with Premadasa. The article reports that it contacted Premadasa’s media secretary, Rajitha Kumara, who said Jayawardena was still performing the role at that point and would resign later to take up an opportunity for further study abroad. Kumara also said Premadasa supported the decision and that the two men remained close. [S1]

FACTLYPolitics & government

The government has appointed 340 upper caste people as IAS officers without any exam

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns alleged government appointments of 340 upper-caste people as IAS officers without an exam. FACTLY places its circulation in the context of the central government’s lateral-entry scheme, which was intended to bring outside professionals into government roles. The review says the government decided in 2018 to appoint outside experts to specified posts, including Joint Secretary and Deputy Secretary/Director positions, and notes that the government confirmed the decision in Parliament. The review compares the claimed figure with reported selections under that scheme: nine candidates for Joint Secretary roles in 2019, followed by 31 candidates in 2021 across Joint Secretary, Director and Deputy Secretary posts. It gives the total as 40 and says this was far below 340. Those figures concern lateral-entry selections across several government ranks—not 340 appointments of IAS officers. On caste and reservations, the review reports that the government said it did not maintain centralized data on the caste or religion of lateral-entry appointees. It also says the UPSC recruitment notifications cited in the review did not list caste or religion among eligibility criteria, and that lateral-entry recruits were appointed on contract. The review therefore concludes that the claim about 340 upper-caste IAS appointments was not supported by the available information; it does not establish the caste of those selected.

RMIT ABC Fact CheckPolitics & government

"This is the largest number of women who have ever served in an Australian cabinet, with 10 women in the cabinet."

Publisher’s rating: Correct

The claim concerned Anthony Albanese’s first ministry, announced after the May 2022 election: whether it set a record for the number of women serving in an Australian cabinet. The investigation compared the number and share of women in that cabinet with earlier records. It reports that the previous high was eight women, or 34.8 per cent of cabinet positions, under the Morrison Coalition government; the Albanese ministry had 10 women among 23 cabinet members, or 43.5 per cent. These figures surpassed the earlier peak on both measures.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: Vladimir putin not condemned india on the prophet mohammad controversy

Publisher’s rating: PARTLY FALSE

Fact Crescendo investigated social-media posts suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had condemned India over a BJP spokesperson’s controversial remarks about Prophet Muhammad. The review says the posts combined news cards and that one card attributed to Putin a statement that insulting the Prophet was not freedom of expression and violated religious freedom. It reports that this card was posted on Facebook on June 6, 2022, and was shared separately as well. The review’s central distinction is between the substance of Putin’s earlier remarks and the claim that he made them in response to the Indian controversy. To check the attribution, the publisher says it searched Google and found a Russian news-agency report dated December 23, 2021. That report described Putin as saying that criticism or insult of Prophet Muhammad was not art or freedom of speech, and that it violated religious freedom and people’s sacred feelings. Fact Crescendo says news reports connected those remarks to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in France. In the material it says it found, there was no evidence that Putin made the remarks in response to the BJP spokesperson’s comments. The review therefore does not say Putin had never criticized insults against Prophet Muhammad. Rather, it concludes that an older statement about a different episode was recirculated as if it were a contemporary response to the BJP controversy. It says this framing created a misleading impression and advises readers not to share such material without verification.

APA - Austrian Presse AgenturPolitics & government

Der deutsche Wirtschaftsminister Robert Habeck hat beim Wirtschaftsforum in Davos gesagt, dass man die Sanktionen gegen Russland nicht aufheben sollte, auch wenn es Hunderttausende Hungertote fordern könne.

Publisher’s rating: Habeck werden hier falsche Zitate unterstellt. Dies beruht zum Teil auf einer ungenauen Übersetzung des Live-Dolmetschers, andererseits auf einer gewollten Verzerrung russlandfreundlicher Akteure.

The claim concerns Robert Habeck’s remarks at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos: circulated versions represented him as saying that sanctions on Russia should not be lifted even if doing so meant hundreds of thousands of people would starve. The review says a widely viewed YouTube video and a tweet spread that interpretation. It compared the circulated wording with the original WEF recording, where Habeck could be heard without the live interpreter. That comparison changes who is described as willing to accept deaths to maintain sanctions. In the circulated translation, Habeck appears to argue that “100,000 lives” might be lost but sanctions should remain. In the review’s translation of the original English, he instead describes it as unthinkable for his country and others to accept lost lives in exchange for ending sanctions, while saying that such a trade-off was conceivable for Russia. The review also reports that the German economy ministry supplied a similar translation and said Habeck was referring to Russia’s use of blocked Ukrainian grain exports as leverage for sanctions relief. The review attributes the misleading version partly to an inaccurate live interpretation and partly to distortion by pro-Russian actors. It also notes the broader food-export context: the FAO simulation it cites projected that undernourished people could increase by eight to eleven million in 2022/23 if the conflict caused a sustained decline in food exports. That forecast is not evidence that Habeck made the circulated statement; the review’s decisive evidence on his words is its comparison with the original recording and the ministry’s separate translation.