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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Technology & AI fact checks

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

1,815 published reviews in this topic

Factcrescendo Sri LankaTechnology & AI

Canada Has Banned RSS !

Publisher’s rating: False

The review addresses a viral video presented as proof that Canada had banned the RSS. It says the video showed Stephen Brown, CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), and Balpreet Singh of the World Sikh Organization calling for action. Among their demands was an immediate ban on the RSS and the expulsion of its activists. The review’s central distinction is that a demand made by these speakers is not itself a Canadian government decision: it says Brown “has no connection to the Canadian government” and that “His comments cannot be comments or directives of the Government of Canada.” To identify the footage, the review reports reverse-image-searching key frames and finding a longer video on NCCMTV, titled “NCCM CEO Stephen Brown Calls for Action in Response to Alleged Assassination of Sikh Man in Canada.” It says that video was uploaded on September 20 and that Brown made several demands there, including one to ban the RSS. The review also checked the NCCM’s official website, which described the organization as independent and non-profit, and found no indication of an affiliation with the Canadian government. The review then searched for evidence that a ban had actually been enacted. It reports finding no announcement on a Canadian government website or in Canadian media, and says its check of Global Affairs Canada’s website found no mention of an RSS ban. On the evidence described, the video documented an advocacy demand, not a government measure; the review concluded that Canada had not banned the RSS.

dpaTechnology & AI

Op een reclamebord in New York stond "Glorie aan urine" ipv "Oekraïne". De fout werd veroorzaakt door een intelligent systeem dat het woord Oekraïne automatisch veranderde in urine, door de gele kleur.

Publisher’s rating: De video is gemanipuleerd. Ze is niet door Fox News gemaakt of uitgezonden. De beelden van de straathoek zijn niet recent en de reclame is waarschijnlijk later aan bestaand beeldmateriaal toegevoegd. Van het verhaal over het intelligente systeem dat de fout veroorzaakte, blijkt ook niets te kloppen.

The claim concerned a video purporting to show a New York billboard displaying “Glory to urine” instead of “Ukraine,” and a story that an intelligent system had made the substitution because it matched the flag’s yellow colour. The investigation checked both the video’s provenance and the explanation for the alleged error. It found that Fox News Digital had not published the video: the outlet’s spokesperson said so, despite a Fox News Digital logo appearing on the footage. The review located the depicted street corner at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. On September 21, 2023, journalist Ben Collins recorded the same corner and found no such message. His footage also showed a McDonald’s and construction scaffolding absent from the viral clip, leading the review to conclude that the viral footage was not recent and did not show the corner as it appeared during the UN meeting. Dating clues placed the underlying street footage between July and December 2022; the review said the billboard message was likely added to older footage. The explanation about an automated system was also unsupported. The review found no evidence of the supposed Clear Channel Outdoor apology, and reported that AP had identified Big Outdoor—not Clear Channel—as the billboard wall’s operator. A Big Outdoor employee told AP that no Ukraine advertisement had ever run there. Thus, the evidence does not support either the video as authentic or the claimed system-generated typo.

Annir InitiativeTechnology & AI

لحظة ادراك ان يوم 11/10/2023 بيسكرو علينا النت وبنولو زي ناس زمان و مش معروف امتى يرجع

Publisher’s rating: زائف

The claim presents an internet shutdown on October 11, 2023, as imminent and says it was unknown when access would return. Annir’s investigation says the circulating clip was not about a planned 2023 shutdown: it was taken from a 2018 episode of the MBC Arabic programme “Maali al-Muwatin,” in which presenter Ali Al-Alyani discussed the possibility of a worldwide internet outage on October 11, 2018. The review describes the subject of that 2018 discussion as a technical change involving internet servers and the replacement of DNSSEC security keys. It says that this change had no connection to cutting off the internet worldwide, and reports that ICANN had made the same clarification on its official Arabic-language account. The post circulating in 2023, according to Annir, reused the beginning of the old programme segment in a misleading way, making an earlier discussion appear to concern a new shutdown. Annir therefore concludes that the claim is false: the video was a distorted presentation of an old technical issue, not evidence that internet access would be cut on October 11, 2023. The supplied excerpt does not provide a link or full quotation of ICANN’s statement, so that underlying statement cannot be independently assessed from this evidence alone.

dpaTechnology & AI

EU-chef zegt dat publiek dat WEF digitale ID’s weigert, van de samenleving zal worden uitgesloten.

Publisher’s rating: Nee, Ursula von der Leyen heeft dergelijke dreigementen niet geuit. Het gerucht is afkomstig van een website die bekendstaat als een notoire verspreider van nepnieuws.

The claim traces to an article by The People’s Voice, which alleged that Ursula von der Leyen had threatened social exclusion for anyone refusing a World Economic Forum digital identity. The review says that Dissident.one and “Wahrheit siegt” repeated the story from that same source. The article linked the alleged remarks to von der Leyen’s speech at a G20 session in India in early September, called “One Future.” The review compares the allegation with what she discussed at that session. It reports that von der Leyen spoke about the EU’s digital transition, first addressing artificial intelligence and then digital public infrastructure, with the EU digital COVID certificate as an example. According to the review, her speech did not mention social exclusion or consequences for people who declined to use that infrastructure. It also distinguishes her statement that the future is digital from the separate allegation that the WEF would control it: the review says she did not make that claim either. The review identifies a privacy-organisations’ appeal to EU leaders as another source of material used in the story. That appeal, which the review says was online from June 2023, warned about privacy risks and called for the infrastructure to remain voluntary, without major negative consequences for people who did not want or could not use it. The review’s account is that The People’s Voice’s headline and introduction turned those concerns into alleged remarks by von der Leyen, and additionally brought in the WEF, although the review says it was not involved in the appeal.

dpaTechnology & AI

Deze video toont robots.

Publisher’s rating: De 'robots' in de video zijn geen echte robots, maar worden gespeeld door acteurs. Het is een promotiestunt voor een film over robots met artificiële intelligentie.

The video concerns four human-shaped figures in gray overalls at SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Chargers. The review says they were there on September 10 for a Chargers game against the Miami Dolphins, and identifies the appearance as promotion for *The Creator*, a science-fiction film about a war between humans and AI robots. The figures resemble robots in the film, but that resemblance does not establish that they are machines. [S1: “De beelden zijn gemaakt in het SoFi Stadium, de thuisbasis van de NFL-ploeg Los Angeles Chargers. De 'robots' waren daar aanwezig op 10 september voor een match van de Chargers tegen de Miami Dolphins. Zoals het opschrift op de grijze overalls verraadt, ging het om een promostunt voor The Creator, een sciencefictionfilm over een oorlog tussen mensen en robots met artificiële intelligentie.”] The investigation points to visible details suggesting the figures were people in costumes: the four wore different black shoes, and high-quality footage showed makeup along their foreheads or faces, apparently used to disguise the transition between skin and costume. The review also reports that spectators seated close to them reached the same conclusion. [S1: “Zo valt in deze foto duidelijk te zien dat ze alle vier andere zwarte schoenen dragen. Als het echt robots waren, lijkt het logisch dat ze standaard dezelfde schoenen dragen. Eerder lijkt het dat het acteurs zijn die de vraag hebben gekregen zeker zwarte schoenen mee te nemen. Op meerdere beelden is ook goed te zien hoe op een lijn op het voorhoofd er een laag make-up in aangebracht (0:18, 0:04, hier), of langs de zijkant van het gezicht (hier) die de overgang tussen echte huid en kunststof moet maskeren.”] The review says dpa used facial-recognition software to identify the four as people working as dancers, actors or musicians in the Los Angeles area. It describes matching individual facial features in the footage with features in social-media photos; it also notes that none answered dpa’s question directly. Taken together, the costume details and the reported identifications support the conclusion that the video shows performers dressed as robots, rather than actual robots. [S1: “Met behulp van gezichtsherkenningssoftware slaagde Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) er ook in om de vier acteurs (hier, hier, hier en hier) te identificeren. Het gaat om mensen die alle vier als danser, acteur, muzikant,... werken in de buurt van Los Angeles.”]