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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.

12,754 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYPolitics & government

Article 370 applicability extended to Nagaland. Modi gave a green signal to Nagaland for having separate flag and passport. Now, Indians cannot buy land in Nagaland.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post claimed that the Modi government had extended Article 370 to Nagaland, approved a separate Naga flag and passport, and thereby meant Indians could no longer buy land there. FACTLY’s review distinguishes the constitutional provision for Nagaland from the one named in the post: it says Nagaland’s special provisions are under Article 371-A, while Article 370 concerns Jammu and Kashmir. Both are in Part XXI of the Constitution, but that does not make them interchangeable. The review says extending Article 370 to Nagaland would require a constitutional amendment and reports that no such amendment had been introduced in Parliament. It also explains that restrictions on Indians from other states buying land in Nagaland already existed under the state’s special provisions; they were not a new consequence of Article 370 being extended. For the flag-and-passport element, the review notes that two websites, E-Pao and Imphal Times, reported that the demands had been approved under the Naga Peace Accord, but says neither gave a proper source and that mainstream media had not reported finalization of the accord. That reporting did not substantiate the post’s claim of a government green light. Taken together, the review’s constitutional and land-purchase evidence, and its account of the unsupported reports, contradict the post’s central assertions.

NewtralPolitics & government

Los «pactos de la infamia» de Ciudadanos: 55 de los 81 gráficos son irreales

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Ciudadanos’ June 2019 campaign criticized local government agreements reached by the PSOE, describing them as “pacts of infamy” and claiming that Sánchez made pacts with nationalists whenever possible. Newtral reviewed the campaign’s Twitter thread and the 81 graphics accompanying most of its posts. Its findings support the headline’s criticism of the graphics, while also identifying separate errors in election figures and claims about local agreements. Newtral reports that at least 49 of the 81 parliamentary-style graphics had serious proportionality errors. It says that in 60% of cases the proportions did not reflect the number of councillors, despite the graphics displaying those numbers. Examples include Bilbao, where the graphic made the PNV’s 14 councillors appear to occupy more seats than the other forces’ 15, and Badalona, where the PP’s 11 councillors were shown taking up the same area as the other parties’ 16 combined. The article also says Ciudadanos reused the same graphic for three municipalities with different results. The review separately identifies incorrect seat counts or party figures in at least six graphics. Examples include Navarra, where Bildu had seven seats rather than the eight shown, and Elche, where the graphic switched the PSOE’s 12 councillors and Compromís’s two. It also checks claims about what agreements meant: in Oion, Newtral says the PSOE and PP together had four councillors, two short of governing, contrary to Ciudadanos’ claim that a constitutionalist majority was available. The article’s account therefore documents multiple kinds of defects; the headline’s “55” refers to graphics characterized as unreal, while the body distinguishes proportionality problems, incorrect data and misleading or false accompanying claims.

Pagella PoliticaPolitics & government

Questo è il governo che ha meno fatto ricorso al voto di fiducia rispetto a quelli precedenti e dovremo lavorare perché il Parlamento sia sempre più centrale.

Publisher’s rating: Vero

The claim concerned the first year of the Conte government, formed by the League and Five Star Movement, and whether it had used confidence votes less often than previous governments. The review explains that this refers to the government making its survival depend on a vote on a particular measure, a procedure that can remove parliamentary amendments. It compares the share of opportunities in which governments used that procedure during their first year in office, using figures attributed to Agi and Openpolis and updated through May 31, 2019. From June 1, 2018, through the end of May 2019, the Conte government called for confidence votes in 10 of 47 opportunities, or about 21.3 percent. The review compares that rate with higher first-year figures for all five preceding governments: Berlusconi IV at 22.06 percent, Monti at 46.59 percent, Letta at 27.78 percent, Renzi at 45.95 percent, and Gentiloni at 35.71 percent. On this comparison, Fraccaro’s claim that Conte’s government had used confidence less than its predecessors is supported. The claim also says Parliament’s centrality still needed work. The review presents this as a qualification, not a contradiction: it reports confidence votes in half of the cases involving laws converting emergency decrees and three such votes to pass the 2019 budget law in late December 2018. Thus, the lower overall first-year rate supports the comparison, while the examples show why the broader goal of strengthening Parliament remained unfinished.

The QuintPolitics & government

Was Home Minister Amit Shah Sleeping in the Parliament?

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a circulating picture said to show Home Minister Amit Shah asleep in Parliament while Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was addressing the House. The Quint’s review says it checked the image’s provenance and compared it with Rajya Sabha TV footage. It identifies the picture as a screengrab from Parliament’s winter session, held from 11 December to 9 January before the Lok Sabha election—not from the ongoing session that users associated it with. The review’s comparison with the Rajya Sabha TV footage found that Shah was not sleeping: the image captured a moment when he was looking down, which made him appear to be asleep. Thus, the image was misleading both about his posture and the session it came from. The review also notes that the same picture had circulated in January 2019, after the winter session had ended.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: Morphed picture of Ramadoss and Anbumani

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

Fact Crescendo investigated a Facebook post that showed Ramadoss seated and his son Anbumani standing, under the caption “Booth – Son of Agni.” The review says the post was shared by the Facebook account Troll Mafia on June 22, 2019, and describes the image as having been photoshopped. It concludes that the post presented a misleadingly altered image for political purposes, rather than an authentic photograph of the two men in the depicted scene. The review identifies the image’s source as the first-look poster for Vijay’s film Bigil. It says that poster was released on June 21, 2019, the day before the Facebook post appeared. The review also places the post amid criticism of Ramadoss after his comments on Tamil Nadu politics, and says the timing and “Son of Agni” caption indicated that the altered image was being used to target him, rather than merely as an earlier light-hearted edit. The review’s reasoning is based on the image’s connection to the film poster and the chronology it reports; the supplied excerpt does not describe a separate technical image-analysis procedure. Its conclusion is that the Facebook post was false. The source’s printed result is “False,” consistent with the supplied publisher rating.

台灣事實查核中心Politics & government

英國在首相柴契爾時代強力修改工會法，嚴禁職業工會罷工，只有企業工會有罷工權...後來歐、美、韓等國家也比照

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The review examined a claim that Margaret Thatcher’s government in Britain prohibited occupational unions from striking, that only enterprise unions retained that right, and that the United States, Europe and South Korea later adopted the same approach. It also assessed connected assertions about whether cross-company membership in Taiwan’s flight-attendant union could vote on the Evergreen strike. The review’s conclusion was that the three named countries had not banned occupational-union strikes; the evidence it presents distinguishes restrictions on some kinds of strikes from a general prohibition on occupational unions. For Britain, the review cites labor-history scholar Chiu Yu-pin and lawyer Tseng Hsiang. Chiu described restrictions on “secondary strikes,” where other unions joined a union’s dispute in solidarity, as a means of weakening union solidarity. Tseng described limits on strikes aimed at securing closed-shop agreements and on strikes unrelated to employment, including political and sympathy strikes. The review says neither set of restrictions amounted to a ban on occupational unions striking. For the United States, it describes Reagan-era requirements for notice and a cooling-off period, then points to the Writers Guild of America’s 2007–08 strike as an example of an occupational union-led strike. On South Korea, Chiu said unions increasingly organized by industry after mass layoffs weakened enterprise unions following the 1997 financial crisis, and that the government had not prohibited occupational-union strikes. The review separately reports that Evergreen’s flight-attendant strike vote met two thresholds: support from more than half of the occupational union’s total membership and approval from more than 80 percent of members in its Evergreen branch. It also cites a court ruling concerning the 2016 China Airlines strike to explain why voting rules for an occupational union need not mean that workers at unrelated companies decide whether to strike at the disputed employer.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: After Kamaraj no one built dam in Tamil Nadu

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined a Facebook post asserting that no one built dams in Tamil Nadu after Kamaraj. It identifies the post as published on June 21, 2019, by a Facebook account called “Agriculture and Medical Tips,” and says it was being widely shared. The review argues that the claim is contradicted by dam construction during later governments: it reports that about 60 new dams were built during DMK and AIADMK administrations, while the state had 10 dams built during Kamaraj’s tenure. The article’s account gives the comparison but does not name the dams or provide a list or underlying records in the supplied excerpt. It points readers to a Dinamalar report for details of dams built during Karunanidhi’s tenure, but that report is not included here. The evidence presented in the review therefore supports rejecting the absolute claim that no dams were built after Kamaraj, while the excerpt does not independently document the reported total of about 60.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: AIADMK functionaries denying media interviews due to water scarcity

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a Facebook post saying AIADMK spokespeople had stopped appearing in television debates because they could not answer questions about Tamil Nadu’s water crisis. Fact Crescendo traced the post to the Mattriyoci Facebook page and reported that it was published on June 17, 2019. The review says it checked the claim against reporting and political developments surrounding the party’s media restrictions. The review places those restrictions after the June 12, 2019 meeting of AIADMK functionaries. It reports that the party’s leadership instructed spokespeople not to express views in any media until further notice, and warned that others must not present their views as the party’s. The review also notes that the meeting’s five resolutions concerned elections, not water scarcity. Its account identifies a different contemporaneous political issue: a dispute over whether the party should have a single leader, following electoral setbacks and public remarks by MLA Rajan Chellappa. Fact Crescendo says reporting published before the meeting described the leadership dispute and a restriction on party members speaking about it publicly. It concludes that water scarcity was not the reason established by the evidence for the media restriction, and labels the Facebook post false. The review qualifies that conclusion: it says no public announcement explicitly stated the reason for the restriction, while arguing that the timing and contemporary reporting point to the single-leadership dispute—not water-related questions—as the issue behind it.

BusinessDayPolitics & government

Did Governor Fayemi budget N1.2bn for travelling?

Publisher’s rating: False

The allegation concerned Kayode Fayemi, then governor of Ekiti State, and said he had budgeted N1.2 billion for travelling. BusinessDay traces it to a June 17, 2019, statement by Lere Olayinka, a media aide to former governor Ayodele Fayose. The article says Olayinka posted the claim on Twitter and Facebook, phrasing it as “Fayemi budgets N1.2bn for travelling.” To check the allegation, BusinessDay says it obtained Ekiti State’s 2019 approved budget from the state government’s website and sorted the allocations for “transport and travelling” under the budget’s “other charges” section. It reports that the Government House and Protocol unit received N391.5 million for those expenses. That specific allocation is below the alleged N1.2 billion, and the review’s conclusion is that the claim is false. There is, however, a significant inconsistency in the figures as printed in the article. It says the total for transport and travelling across the state budget was N998.1 billion, a figure that is not lower than N1.2 billion, despite the article’s conclusion saying it is. The stated N391.5 million allocation for Government House and Protocol does support the review’s conclusion for that unit, but the article’s statewide total does not support its stated comparison. The excerpt does not clarify or resolve this discrepancy.