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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.

12,752 published reviews in this topic

APA - Austria Presse AgenturPolitics & government

Gesundheitsminister Wolfgang Mückstein konnte beim Besuch eines Wirtshauses keinen 3G-Nachweis vorweisen und ist daraufhin vom Wirten rausgeworfen worden.

Publisher’s rating: Mückstein ist seit Anfang Februar geimpft. Sein 3G-Nachweis gilt selbst ohne Auffrischung bis Jänner 2022. Es gibt keinerlei Hinweise, dass der Vorfall tatsächlich so stattgefunden hat.

The claim circulating on Facebook was that Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein could not show proof of 3G compliance during a pub visit and was thrown out by the landlord. The APA investigation checked the specific story, including whether Mückstein had a valid certificate and whether his spokesperson knew of such an incident. The spokesperson said no such incident was known.

dpaPolitics & government

Für eine Fahrt mit dem Taxi von Wien nach Luxemburg gab Kanzleramtsministerin Karoline Edtstadler 4000 Euro aus.

Publisher’s rating: Es stimmt, dass für die Reise ein Budget von rund 4000 Euro aufgewendet wurde – darin enthalten waren neben Hin- und Rückfahrt zwischen Frankfurt und Luxemburg aber auch Fahrtkosten innerhalb Luxemburgs während der dreitägigen Reise.

The allegation concerned ÖVP minister Karoline Edtstadler and claimed she travelled by taxi from Vienna to Luxembourg for about €4,000. The investigation found that a sum of roughly that size was recorded for her Luxembourg trip, but that the claim misrepresented both the route and what the costs covered. The review says Edtstadler and her staff travelled from Frankfurt because there were no suitable flights, and that the journey included the return trip as well as local travel in Luxembourg. The recorded amount was €4,173.90 for the 12–14 October trip. It appeared in the response to a parliamentary inquiry about taxi and rental-car costs, described as Edtstadler’s foreign trip for various appointments in Luxembourg. A spokesperson confirmed the information to dpa and said the vehicles were rented by the Austrian embassy in Luxembourg. The booking period covered all three days, including the outward and return journeys and travel within Luxembourg; drivers were hired so the delegation could use travel time to prepare. The review traces the allegation to a Facebook post showing a screenshot apparently taken from a ZackZack article. It notes that the article’s later text qualified its opening, and points to a Standard article describing two rental cars used by Edtstadler and her delegation to travel to Luxembourg and back to Frankfurt. Thus, the amount was associated with the trip, but the evidence does not support describing it as the cost of a taxi journey from Vienna to Luxembourg.

El Detector/ Univision NoticiasPolitics & government

El esposo de Hutchins está vinculado con investigaciones sobre Rusia

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns Matthew Hutchins, the husband of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and alleges that he was linked to an investigation involving Russia. The review identifies this as one of three false claims circulated after Hutchins’s death, alongside claims about Alec Baldwin and a supposed tweet by Hutchins. It specifically names the investigation at issue as one by the U.S. Department of Justice and says the allegation confused Matthew Hutchins with other people. The review’s conclusion is direct: it states that Matthew Hutchins was not connected to any investigation related to the Russian government and that the allegation concerned other people. The excerpt does not describe the underlying investigation or give details of the people who were confused with him, so it supports the conclusion about the identity mix-up but does not provide further documentation of that investigation.

המשרוקית של גלובסPolitics & government

צריך 61 תומכים כדי להעביר תקציב מדינה כי זה חוק יסוד

Publisher’s rating: לא נכון

The claim under review was made by Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz during a Keshet 12 interview with Ofira Assayag and Eyal Berkovich. Asked how many votes the budget would get, Horowitz answered that it needed 61 because it was a Basic Law. The investigation broke this statement into three questions: whether the budget required 61 votes, whether the budget itself was a Basic Law, and whether Basic Laws generally required 61 votes to be enacted. Horowitz’s representatives declined to comment, according to the review. On the vote threshold, the review examined the relevant provisions of Basic Law: The State Economy and the Budget Foundations Law. It reports that the budget rules do not specify a 61-vote requirement, while section 3C(a) requires at least 50 members’ votes for budgetary bills. As examples of actual votes, the review notes that the 2021–2022 budget proposals passed first reading with 59 supporters, and the 2017–2018 budget passed its third reading with 59. Thus, the evidence presented contradicts the assertion that 61 votes were necessary. The review distinguishes the annual budget from the Basic Law governing state finances: the budget is enacted in a separate ordinary law, not as a Basic Law. It also explains that special temporary legislation once enabled biennial budgets, but describes that as an exception rather than the status of the budgets in question. Finally, the review says there is no general requirement for 61 votes to enact a Basic Law, citing examples that passed with fewer supporters. Taken together, its examination rejects the linked claims that the budget needed 61 votes because the budget itself was a Basic Law.

FACTLYPolitics & government

mage of a woman health worker making an obscene gesture at PM Modi

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photo said to show a woman health worker making an obscene gesture at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. FACTLY reports that the image circulating with that claim was altered: it says the original photo shows Modi giving healthcare workers a thumbs up at Delhi’s RML Hospital, not the woman making the alleged gesture. The review connects that setting to India crossing one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses. [S1] For its check, FACTLY says it reverse-searched the circulated image and found a similar photo in an ANI tweet dated 21 October 2021. The review describes ANI’s image as showing Modi giving a thumbs up to health workers at RML Hospital as the vaccination milestone was reached. It also says other news websites published about the same original photo and event. [S1] There is an internal contradiction in the supplied review text: after stating that the original does not show the gesture, it says, “But the original photo did show” it. The surrounding account—including the description of the ANI image and the review’s concluding finding—supports the claim that the circulating image was morphed, but the excerpt does not explain or correct that contradictory sentence. [S1]

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: Father jo arun not made this statement in front of mk stalin

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The viral post presented a video of Father Jo Arun speaking at an event attended by M.K. Stalin, with a Tamil translation alleging that Arun had secretly added Christian stories and conversion-related content to school textbooks. Fact Crescendo checked whether the speech and the event shown in the post were actually the same. The review says that Stalin attended the opening of a new building at LIBA in Chennai, where Jo Arun, the institute’s director, delivered a welcome address; that footage did not contain the alleged remarks about textbooks. The review traced the speech used to support the allegation to an earlier video uploaded by Loyola College on December 19, 2018. Its description identified the recording as Jo Arun speaking at a national seminar on higher education held on November 23–24, 2018. The fact-check reports watching the full video: Stalin was not in it, and Jo Arun did not say he had inserted Jesus stories or material promoting religious conversion. Instead, the review says, he discussed his role as an adviser to a committee revising social-science curricula and described his ideas for a first-grade textbook. The dates also rule out the post’s presentation of the speech as one made before Stalin at the 2021 building opening: the review notes that Stalin became chief minister in May 2021, whereas the seminar speech was recorded in 2018. It further reports checking the first-grade environmental-studies textbook and finding no Christian-doctrine material. The review’s conclusion is that the post used older footage and a misleading translation or description to make it appear that Jo Arun made the alleged admission at the later event.