There are lot of fake Epstein-related images circulating across platforms, including this picture purporting to show Donald Trump and Pam Bondi. The image is altered. In original 1997 photo, Trump is posing beside Belgian model Ingrid Seynhaeve. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

President Donald Trump added bronze plaques at the White House that include misleading or false descriptions of recent Democratic presidents.

NEW: Statements from Mustapha Kharbouch, the Brown University student falsely accused online of being the campus shooter, and their legal team. "The past few days have been an unimaginable nightmare," Kharbouch says. "I received non-stop death threats and hate speech."

Student baselessly blamed for Brown University shooting online u.afp.com/NotTheBrownS...

Awful that these events are nearly always accompanied by such false accusations, but great work by @billmccarthy.bsky.social to capture the spread of these claims in real time

NEW: Statements from Mustapha Kharbouch, the Brown University student falsely accused online of being the campus shooter, and their legal team. "The past few days have been an unimaginable nightmare," Kharbouch says. "I received non-stop death threats and hate speech."

FACT CHECK: Right-wing X users spent days blaming Brown University's shooting on Palestinian student Mustapha Kharbouch, even as school and state officials rejected those allegations. Now, authorities have ID'd the suspect as another man: Claudio Neves Valente. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

NEW: Officials in Rhode Island have denounced misinformation that they said complicated their multiday search for the gunman who killed two students and wounded others at Brown University. More from @en.afp.com: www.france24.com/en/live-news...

FACT CHECK: Right-wing X users spent days blaming Brown University's shooting on Palestinian student Mustapha Kharbouch, even as school and state officials rejected those allegations. Now, authorities have ID'd the suspect as another man: Claudio Neves Valente. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Darnell Weaver, Rhode Island State Police superintendent: “Criminal investigations are grounded in evidence, not speculation or online commentary. The endless barrage of misinformation, disinformation, rumors, leaks and clickbait were not helpful in this investigation.”

For days, a torrent of posts from mostly anonymous X accounts baselessly blamed the Brown University shooting on a Palestinian student at the school. Officials tonight identified the suspect as Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente, 48, who was found dead in a storage unit.

Two videos have been falsely claimed to show the UK and Pakistan celebrating the Bondi Beach attack. In fact, the clips show a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Manchester in June and a fireworks display in Karachi after Hamas's attack on Israel. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Online claims that one of the Bondi Beach shooters was an Israeli man named "David Cohen" are false, and the accompanying images show signs of AI. Australian media identified the alleged perpetrators as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

This alleged post from Rob Reiner is an old fake. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

The man who wrestled a gun from one of the Bondi Beach attackers was identified as Ahmed al Ahmed. False claims that the hero was an IT pro named Edward Crabtree originated on a sham news website that was only registered on the day of the attack. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Brown University warned in a statement last night against "harmful doxxing activity" online related to its campus shooting. "If this individual’s name had any relevance to the current investigation, they would be actively looking for this individual and providing information publicly."

A Sydney man said he had received death threats and was "terrified" to leave his home Monday after his photo was widely shared online in posts misidentifying him as the gunman responsible for the Bondi Beach shooting. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

A video of a Christmas fireworks display has been falsely claimed to show "Islamists" celebrating the Bondi Beach shooting. A group told AFP they planned the display for an annual Christmas event months in advance and it was "not in any way related." factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

A Sydney man said he had received death threats and was "terrified" to leave his home Monday after his photo was widely shared online in posts misidentifying him as the gunman responsible for the Bondi Beach shooting. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

New! We worked with the Public Interest Research Group to test a bunch of LLM-driven toys ahead of the Christmas. That sexual talking teddy bear wasn't a one-off; it turns out disturbing behavior is deeply built into these toys across the board.

An altered video of the Netflix logo painted over the Warner Bros water tower is spreading across platforms amid the streaming giant's bidding war with Paramount. Warner Bros, Netflix and the visual effects artist who created the fake all confirmed it was edited. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Was the Netflix logo added to the iconic Warner Bros water tower in Burbank, California? No, the visual effects artist who created the clip told us the footage is altered. Read more: u.afp.com/WBWaterTower

This video of Melania Trump scowling and eavesdropping on US President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at 2026 FIFA World Cup draw is, as should be obvious, altered. It has millions of views across platforms. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

This post falsely claims to show Afghans plowing with a US tank left behind after the 2021 withdrawal of troops. A UK influencer uploaded the video in August, saying it showed him harvesting a field with a British armored vehicle he bought from the army. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

🧵 These hundreds of attractive X/Twitter "MAGA patriots" don't exist. They use stolen photos and hacked X accounts. A chatbot equivalent helps them to gain thousands of followers. There are 5+ potentially-separate networks. The location transparency feature WON'T expose many of them.

⚽ The path to glory at the 2026 World Cup has now been laid out after the contenders discovered their tournament fate at the draw ceremony in Washington which was dominated by Donald Trump. ➡️ u.afp.com/S7ii

A different and exciting assignment for me Friday as I assisted AFP's coverage of the World Cup draw. Check out @andpscott.bsky.social's stellar write-up of the Trump-heavy event in Washington and how the 2026 tournament's groups unfolded: u.afp.com/S7wf

🚜A little bit of light reading for your consideration this Friday evening on the very slow death of a 25-year-old landmark paper on glyphosate. My latest for AFP, thankful for the editorial guidance of @issamahmed.bsky.social on this. u.afp.com/glyphosate

Holders Argentina and leading contenders Spain were handed kind draws for the 2026 World Cup at a star-studded ceremony where US President Donald Trump took center stage u.afp.com/S7wf

Next year's FIFA World Cup, to be hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, will be the first to feature 48 teams. Here's the results of the draw, which took place at a star-studded ceremony in Washington

Human rights groups called on FIFA today to deliver on its promises to safeguard workers and fans at the World Cup, warning ahead of the draw in Washington Friday that President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies could overshadow the tournament. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Right-wing social media users falsely claimed this video showed Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan chanting for a "revolution" after the National Guard shooting in DC. The clip was filmed days earlier at a pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin. I geolocated it. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Human rights groups called on FIFA today to deliver on its promises to safeguard workers and fans at the World Cup, warning ahead of the draw in Washington Friday that President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies could overshadow the tournament. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Two videos claimed to show migrants sleeping on the floor of an ICE facility spread widely, but three media forensics experts agreed they are likely AI-generated, with inconsistencies including blurred faces, a warped hand and an arm that abruptly appears. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

A digitally altered image of Zohran Mamdani spread widely across platforms -- fueling claims that Donald Trump's scarf-and-coat outfit was worn in imitation -- and was even picked up by some news sites. In the original photo, he was wearing different colors. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

This video is -- as the words on the wall make clear -- from a local board of education meeting in California, not British Columbia, Canada The school district welcomed a high school graduate to perform a traditional dance for Native American Heritage Month. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Donald Trump shared several QAnon-themed images last night from the same self-avowed QAnon account.

Denton Loudermill Jr. was falsely accused online, including by politicians, of being the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooter and an undocumented immigrant. The misinformation sent the father of three into a year-long spiral of paranoia. Then he died. www.barrons.com/news/grievin...

Denton Loudermill Jr. was falsely accused online, including by politicians, of being the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooter and an undocumented immigrant. The misinformation sent the father of three into a year-long spiral of paranoia. Then he died. Read more: u.afp.com/Shk8

This image purporting to show Walmart offloading Trump-themed merchandise for 99 cents in a massive clearance sale is AI-generated, as is evidenced by the Google Gemini watermark in the lower-right corner. It has spread widely across platforms anyway. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

NEW: Elon Musk's Grokipedia cites a neo-Nazi website 42 times, researchers say www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-mu...

Kansas City Chiefs fan Denton Loudermill Jr. died in April after misinformation falsely accusing him of a shooting at the 2024 Super Bowl champions' parade sent him into a year-long spiral of paranoia. His family is still trying to pick up the pieces. www.barrons.com/news/grievin...

I really appreciate @billmccarthy.bsky.social for bringing my attention to this tragic case. As I told him in our interview, "What depresses me about these cases is that even if they're ultimately successful, the damage is really impossible to undo."

Trump floats death penalty for 'seditious' Democrats www.yahoo.com/news/article...

One of the most tragic stories I have ever worked on. www.barrons.com/news/grievin...

Exclusive: The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, nooses and the Confederate flag as hate symbols. The military service drafted a new policy that classifies them as “potentially divisive.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has long voiced anti-vaccine rhetoric and inaccurate claims connecting immunizations to autism, has now inserted his own views into official US advice, with the CDC updating its website Wednesday to reflect his vaccine skepticism. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

"When outraged Filipinos turned to an AI-powered chatbot to verify a viral photograph of a lawmaker embroiled in a corruption scandal, the tool failed to detect it was fabricated -- even though it had generated the image itself." www.france24.com/en/live-news...