Google Search is vandalising the internet. 👀 Our new investigation reveals how some of our fact checks are being shown in misleading ways:

This is why at @leadstories.com we try th put the conclusion of our fact checks within the first eight words of the headline if we can. Harder for Google to muck up :-)

Reposting this oldie.... leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2...

Eerste (en enige) job ook waar ik via IRC chat voor gesolliciteerd heb :-) Ze deden een oproep in kanaal #vlaanderen als ik me goed herinner...

Don't repost this fact check or you might get flagged and tagged too! ⓘ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘢. 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳.

BREAKING: The Rapture has been postponed by Executive Order... more soon.

Proudly announcing governmental oversight actions resulted in speech from fact checkers being withheld from the public...

... has repeatedly insisted that fact checking is, by itself, "censorship" and here we have Jim Jordan repeating the directly. When, what it really shows is how Jim Jordan's threats and pressure are actually *suppressing* fact checking speech.

Fact checking IS NOT AND CANNOT BE "censorship." It is literally the "more speech" that pretend free speech supporters always claim they want. It's more speech weighing in on the accuracy of other speech. It's literally a part of the "marketplace of ideas." Yet, over the last decade, the GOP...

There are plenty of misrepresentations going around regarding Google's pathetically sucking up letter to Jim Jordan, which deliberately misrepresents reality in a manner designed to make Jordan look good, but the one part that really gets me is this one:

People on X speculate about increased Grindr usage during the Charlie Kirk memorial --> Downdetector picks it up --> Shows a spike --> "Online Reports!" --> People on X talk about the "online reports" --> Downdetector picks up the talk --> Bigger spike! (repeat) Grindr: "nope."

Reposting some oldies today...

Reposting some oldies today...

Wonder if we'll see many TikTok refugees come over to Bluesky once US TikTok is sold to more Trump-friendly investors. We'll be able to say we knew @bluescreen.blue when it still had 11.1K followers :-)

Why do Americans need to make it so difficult for honest, hardworking Vietnamese fake news clickbait spammers just trying to make a living? Stop confusing them by having two late-night talk show hosts named "Jimmy"!

Clay Higgins sent a letter to Bluesky and other social media sites threatening investigations if they don't censor speech critical of Charlie Kirk. They don't even know who Jay is because they addressed her as "gentleman." clayhiggins.house.gov/wp-content/u...

The enshittification continues...

A viral fake story about a chihuahua joining a wolf pack is going round. Let's compare search engine results for "chihuahua joins wolf pack": Google: just copies of the hoax DuckDuckGo: fact check in #1 position Bing: irrelevant AI summary, images, then fact check Yahoo: fact check in #1 position

AI slop merchants aren't just doing fake stories about celebrities making donations for or paying tribute to Charlie Kirk. They are now doing entire fake music videos.

Nu begin ik hieraan. Wish me luck, @mschenk.bsky.social

Greetings from the #Sanicole sunset airshow...

At @leadstories.com we've been debunking a stream of these. Seems like a network operating out of Vietnam churning out dozens of versions of the same stories using the same AI prompts but with different celebrities and locations inserted.

All the English language fact checks about "Charlie Kirk" in Google's Fact Check Explorer since the shooting are by @leadstories.com and @snopes.com. Seems @leadstories.com wrote about all the things that didn't happen, while @snopes.com wrote about what did. toolbox.google.com/factcheck/ex...

Fact Check: Man Near Stage Was NOT Cheering Because Charlie Kirk Was Shot -- He Was Chanting "USA"

Will this be the first 9-11 without old conspiracies going viral again because the conspiracists are too busy making up new conspiracies right now? #charliekirk #911

Fact Check: Video Of Black Man Being Arrested Does NOT Show Suspect In Charlie Kirk Shooting

Fact Check: Viral 'Michael Mallinson' Photo Does NOT Match Image of Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect -- No Identity Released Yet

Fact Check: Samden Hindenberg Did NOT Shoot Charlie Kirk -- Troll Posts Blaming Sam Hyde

Fact Check: Charlie Kirk Did NOT Say "If somebody ever shoots me through the neck ... I lowkey think that rocks"

Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Provo Police Finding Murder Weapon And Arresting Possible Charlie Kirk Shooter -- It's An Air Rifle

Fact Check: FAKE Subtitle Shows Cartman Saying 'What Will You Do? Shoot Me?' As Charlie Kirk Inspired Debater -- Not In South Park Episode

Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Charlie Kirk's Real Shooter Escaping -- Old Footage, Different Shooting, Different Place

Fact Check: Satire Story Said Felix Roemer Shot Charlie Kirk -- Not Real

Christopher Blair, A.K.A. Busta Troll, a man who has made a career out of trolling conservatives on Facebook by tricking them into liking and sharing fake content (that often got picked up and repeated by spam networks, influencers, etc.), just posted this. The brakes are completely off at Meta...

Auw! "Volgens Tijsmans gaat hierdoor de kwaliteit van tv-reeksen achteruit. “Ik zie dingen op tv waarvan ik denk: dat overstijgt het niveau van een kampvuurnummer bij de jeugdbeweging niet”" Mark was mijn leider bij de Chiro. Mijn kampvuurnummers hadden *wel* niveau! www.hbvl.be/media-en-cul...

I found some pictures in my archive I took in 2022 of the peace vigil tent President Trump just had removed and which was in place since 1981: www.cnn.com/2025/09/07/p...

Proficiat aan alle thuiswerkers die vanaf vandaag het kot weer voor zich alleen hebben* * Uitgezonderd die met studenten, nog een paar weken geduld!

Allez, ze hebben precies geluisterd naar de voorstellen op sociale media door Tom Waes publiek boete laten doen met een gewicht aan zijn **** en hem te beschieten met vuurpijlen... ;-)

Geez... you all act as if you've never seen a public figure go out of the public eye for three days to get their adrenochrome treatment ;-)

Hey look, @mmasnick.bsky.social, ten billion users just arrived in Belgium!

The year is 2418. In an annual ceremony beamed live from the Oval Space Station, the cyberpresident of the Virtual States of America extends the TikTok sale deadline. Nobody remembers how this quaint tradition ever started or what "TikTok" was. apnews.com/article/trum...

For some reason there doesn't seem to be much of a line at the Wieliczka Salt Mine for the Russian-language tour... #Poland #vacation

Meta fired its fact-checkers, citing concerns of liberal bias, and replaced them with a version of X's "Community Notes." How's that going? Well, my coworker @geoffreyfowler.bsky.social proposed 65 fact-checks debunking false posts... and only 3 got approved. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Stories from @leadstories.com: Now also via Yahoo! News... www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Fact Check: Trump Organization Epstein Letter Image Does NOT Match Description In Wall Street Journal -- Several Differences

Curious about the case of missing hikers "Sarah Bennett" and "Andrew Miller"? * Google gives you two bogus videos, a summary of the fake story and a link to it on Facebook above the fact check that explains it is all fake. * Bing gives you the fact check in position one * So does DuckDuckGo

Woah! Main stage on fire at Tomorrowland festival in Belgium. Festival hadn't started yet, luckily.

I love AI slop (the term, not the content itself) but it contains multitudes. In my latest for @indicator.media, I propose a taxonomy that differentiates it by form and purpose. Feedback welcome from slop savants! indicator.media/p/a-tentativ...

This was not on my bingo card for 2025...