Skip to main content

PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Politics & government fact checks

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

12,754 published reviews in this topic

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaPolitics & government

FACT CHECK: දේවානි ජවිපෙ පක්ෂ සාමාජිකත්වය ලබා ගත්තද?

Publisher’s rating: Altered

The claim concerned Gampaha district forestry officer Dewani Jayathilake, who was photographed with lawyer Niroopa Serasinghe, a candidate for the National People’s Power (NPP) in the previous general election. Social media posts presented the image as proof that Jayathilake had joined the NPP/JVP. The review explains that the circulating version showed a caption saying she had taken party membership that day, while the claim was not supported by the original post.

FACTLYPolitics & government

During former PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh, Sonia Gandhi took the prominent seat in a meeting held with Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim links a photo of Sonia Gandhi meeting Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s 2011 visit to Bangladesh. The review identifies a different setting: Hasina’s four-day visit to India in 2019. It says Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and other Congress leaders met Hasina in New Delhi on 6 October 2019, and that the photo does not depict Singh’s Bangladesh visit. To check the image’s provenance, the review describes a reverse image search. It reports finding a similar photo in a New Indian Express article dated 6 October 2019, which identified the people meeting Hasina in New Delhi as Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and other Congress leaders. The review says the same photo appeared in several other news articles about that meeting. The distinction is the event and location, not whether Sonia Gandhi was present or took the prominent seat: the review says she did take that seat as Congress president, but at the 2019 meeting in India. It therefore concludes that presenting the photo as one from Singh’s 2011 Bangladesh visit misrepresents its context.