fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “Russian news services advertise Covid-19 demonstrations in Germany”

Thomas Haldenwang, president of the German intelligence service “Verfassungsschutz”, claimed that “the Internet channel RT Deutsch and the news agency Sputnik advertised so-called Hygienedemos and exaggerated them afterwards“. Our research doesn’t prove Haldenwang right but it’s possible that the Verfassungsschutz uses different sources which is why we assess the claim as uncheckable. The Federal Office…

fact checking

Mostly false: “The first doses of the vaccine will be available in Italy in early December”

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced that the anti-Covid drug will begin to be distributed in just over a month: “If the final stages of preparation of the Oxford-Irbm Pomezia-AstraZeneca vaccine will be completed in the coming weeks, the first doses will be available in early December. The statement, taken from the book “Why Italy…

Mostly True: German newspaper claims “people are hoarding cash” in the crisis

Referring to the European Central Bank (ECB) the german „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ (FAZ) headlined on September 24th, 2020: “In the crisis, people are hoarding cash.“ Even if the term “hoarding” is incorrect in this case, all other figures, facts, quotations and the context are correct, which is why the claim is to be assessed as…

False: Croatia is one of the most tolerant countries in the world

According to an article published in the online version of Croatian daily newspaper ‘Večernji list’, titled “List of the most tolerant countries in the world has been published. Where is Croatia?”, the country is very highly ranked. However, the study quoted in the article uses the world “inclusiveness” and does not mention “tolerance” anywhere. Therefore,…

fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “Every euro that we give towards the EU budget, 12 euros will be returned to the Dutch business community”

Dutch politicians are regularly seen in late night talk shows, especially during the corona crisis. In the Dutch talk show ‘Op1’ party leader Rob Jetten from the social-liberal party D66 took part in a discussion and tried to explain how important the proposed Merkel-Macron Corona virus relief agreement is for the EU and the Netherlands.…

False: “Gender violence is a big lie. […] it’s like denying day or night”.

Javier Ortega-Smith, the Secretary-General of the Spanish far-right-wing party, Vox called gender violence a ‘big lie’ after the celebration of the new judicial year in the Community of Madrid, in September 9th of 2019. There was a significant emphasis on gender violence  in that celebration and this made him state that ‘violence is violence and …