Skip to main content

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

FACTLYTechnology & AI

Google owns the user data and retains it even when the user deleted the data permanently

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY examined a social-media post making two claims: that Google owns data users save to its services, and that Google keeps the data after users delete it. Its review says it checked Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The Terms of Service passage it cites says users retain ownership of intellectual-property rights in their content, contradicting the ownership claim.

Factcrescendo Sri LankaTechnology & AI

Everything you ever published, even deleted messages will become publicly visible in Facebook

Publisher’s rating: False

The viral posts warned Facebook users that everything they had ever posted—including photos and private messages, even deleted messages—would become public. They also urged users to copy a statement denying Facebook permission to share their material. The review identifies this as a recurring scam message, rather than a new rule announced by Facebook. S1 describes the claim as saying “all the posts, photos, and even private messages ever uploaded and sent via Facebook would soon become public including the deleted messages as well.” To check the allegation, the review says it searched Facebook’s privacy policy for terms saying that posts, images, messages, or deleted content would become publicly available, but found none. It also notes that users can change privacy settings and choose which audiences can see their content. These points address the post’s central assertion of an automatic, platform-wide change, rather than proving that Facebook never collects or uses user information. S1 says the policy search “couldn’t find any such terms” and that users have “the option on which audiences see concerned content.” The review adds that similar messages had circulated repeatedly for years and that other fact-checkers had debunked them. Its conclusion is that the specific warning about all past content and deleted messages becoming public was a recurring hoax. The excerpt does not identify those other fact-checks or provide their findings, so that reference is supporting context reported by the review, not independently detailed evidence here. S1 calls the claims “a recurring scam message” and concludes that the posts were “a recurring hoax for many years.”