#Fact check

[o-kurwa]

[adaginy]

Insert here: "You are not immune to propaganda"

There's a post I've seen and probably "liked" but it's in the abyss of my likes now, someone looking for the source of what appears to be an old gay painting, two men sneaking a kiss under the dappled light of a tree. They reverse image search and find that, hey, there are no pre-2023 references of this image and hey whaddya know the oldest version of the image includes the ai prompts that made it.

So the first thing I did with this image was search for the painter, and this art doesn't come up. That doesn't bode well, though guy doesn't seem averse to drawing naughty things.

Next up, reverse image search. Nothing that looks reputable at a glance. Reddit, pinterest, redbubble. If I'd looked closer, I would have seen that one site gave a French title, Ce fut dans un chaud crépuscule. I don't speak French, but I can at least see it doesn't say 'two women'. My translation widget says "It was in a hot twilight". This is as far as I got on my own, but googling the French title *would* have led me to a collection of his paintings on wikimedia, so that would have helped. The wikimedia page for the art does link to a wikisource page with the (French) book text, so I could have at least seen that it was actually the guy's art and it was in this book, but I don't think google translate would do a good enough job with the book for me to suss out who was who.

OR, what I did when I felt a little stymied,

I could have simply opened the notes, filtered by the ones that add comments, seen that someone ELSE did the research, and checked THEIR work. Google translate of the book IS good enough to verify that this is about Prince Cimmerion's slave-wife and Cimmerion's little brother.

(the bit about the translation also checks out. dude was prolific, good lord. )

Two Women Kissing in Nature (b. 1859)

— by Georges Rochegrosse

[saywhat-politics]

Far-right conspiracy theories are percolating through social media after the floods in Texas on July 4, and now as flooding also plagues New Mexico. It prompted several local meteorologists to issue their own fact-checks and explain some of the myths around cloud seeding.

The Guardian reported on Wednesday that rumors about the "deep state" are spreading amid the weather disasters.

"Some people, emerging from the same vectors associated with the longstanding QAnon conspiracy theory, which essentially holds that a shadowy 'deep state' is acting against President Donald Trump, spread on X that the devastating weather was being controlled by the government," the report said.

[blumineck]

Whenever a video with a new device for launching arrows goes viral, I get a bunch of requests to fact check it. Which feels weird because if it works it works, and figuring that out from a short video is guesswork at best.

But here’s some of that thought process!

Anyway, here’s Patreon. I do more answers to requested questions there.

[curlicuecal]

playing science telephone

Hi folks. Let's play a fun game today called "unravelling bad science communication back to its source."

Journey with me.

Saw a comment going around on a tumblr thread that "sometimes the life expectancy of autism is cited in the 30s"

That number seemed..... strange. The commenter DID go on to say that that was "situational on people being awful and not… anything autism actually does", but you know what? Still a strange number. I feel compelled to fact check.

Quick Google "autism life expectancy" pulls up quite a few websites bandying around the number 39. Which is ~technically~ within the 30s, but already higher than the tumblr factoid would suggest. But, guess what. This number still sounds strange to me.

Most of the websites presenting this factoid present themselves as official autism resources and organizations (for parents, etc), and most of them vaguely wave towards "studies."

Ex: "Above And Beyond Therapy" has a whole article on "Does Autism Affect Life Expectancy" and states:

The link implies that it will take you to the "research studies" being referenced, but it in fact takes you to another random autism resource group called.... Songbird Care?

And on that website we find the factoid again:

Ooh, look. Now they've added the word "some". The average lifespan for SOME autistic people. Which the next group erased from the fact. The message shifts further.

And we have slightly more information about the study! (Which has also shifted from "studies" to a singular "study"). And we have another link!

Wonderfully, this link actually takes us to the actual peer-reviewed 2020 study being discussed. [x]

And here, just by reading the abstract, we find the most important information of all.

This study followed a cohort of adolescent and adult autistic people across a 20 year time period. Within that time period, 6.4% of the cohort died. Within that 6.4%, the average age of death was 39 years.

So this number is VERY MUCH not the average age of death for autistic people, or even the average age of death for the cohort of autistic people in that study. It is the average age of death IF you died young and within the 20 year period of the study (n=26), and also we don't even know the average starting age of participants without digging into earlier papers, except that it was 10 or older. (If you're curious, the researchers in the study suggested reduced self-sufficiency to be among the biggest risk factors for the early mortality group.)

But the number in the study has been removed from it's context, gradually modified and spread around the web, and modified some more, until it is pretty much a nonsense number that everyone is citing from everyone else.

There ARE two other numbers that pop up semi-frequently:

One cites the life expectancy at 58. I will leave finding the context for that number as an exercise for the audience, since none of the places I saw it gave a direct citation for where they were getting it.

And then, probably the best and most relevant number floating around out there (and the least frequently cited) draws from a 2023 study of over 17,000 UK people with an autism diagnosis, across 30 years. [x] This study estimated life expectancies between 70 and 77 years, varying with sex and presence/absence of a learning disability. (As compared to the UK 80-83 average for the population as a whole.)

This is a set of numbers that makes way more sense and is backed by way better data, but isn't quite as snappy a soundbite to pass around the internet. I'm gonna pass it around anyway, because I feel bad about how many scared internet people I stumbled across while doing this search.

People on quora like "I'm autistic, can I live past 38"-- honey, YES. omg.

---

tl;dr, when someone gives you a number out of context, consider that the context is probably important

also, make an amateur fact checker's life easier and CITE YOUR SOURCES

[dracl-dragon]

!!!!!

with love. you have to fact check shit. yes you. you still have to fact check shit. a lot of people are great at fact checking stuff they don’t want to be true, but somehow are still absolute ass at fact checking stuff that’s rhetorically convenient to them. even people my age, who I KNOW grew up doing internet/bibliography literacy workshops, and being warned not to believe anything that isn’t reliably sourced, people who DO harp on fact checking conservative output or whatever, are still kneejerk sharing unsourced shit that is partially or wholly untrue or misleading, because it suits whatever narrative they’re pursuing in that moment, without even a “take this with a grain of salt”. fact check!!!!!! look at the sources!!!!! yes it’s a drag!!! do it!!!!!

[disparition]

this is a picture of a stack of bricks. it’s located at a construction site in new jersey.

if you do a reverse image search, you will find this image currently being posted on multiple social media networks along with the claim that violent protests in LA were planned by some nefarious conspiracy and that these pallets of bricks were dropped off at strategic locations near protests in order to fuel said violence.

often, when a picture like this is posted, the conversation is immediately flooded with commentators who readily accept the image as hard proof of what is “really happening” even though it is simply a photo of some bricks with no stated location or context (as for how i know the bricks are in NJ, see here: https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2025/06/fact-check-photo-of-bricks-was-not-taken-in-los-angeles-during-june-2025-protests.html)

there’s no AI trickery here, these are real bricks, and the people sharing the image don’t have to do any work to “prove” that these bricks have anything to do with the protest, because a pre-existing crowd of accounts is already there to support the narrative and shout down contradictions.

this is of course just a drop in the bucket. the misinformation war is huge, and pales in comparison to the physical violence that victims of ICE and other state forces are going through today, but all of these elements work together.

i am hearing from people in other parts of the country that LA is “on fire” (it isn’t), that local authorities have told law enforcement to stand down and join the protests (they haven’t), that there is widespread looting and rioting (there isn’t). there is zero justification for the national guard or marines being sent here, that is entirely a political stunt; albeit a disgusting and dangerous one. i have also seen people sharing videos of soccer fans and claiming they are protestors, sharing pics from other protests in 2020 or even in other countries, and claiming that its current footage of LA

you are being lied to. that’s not new, but the speed and scale of it is. as usual, the reality is that the majority of violence is coming from the authorities, and the widespread use of deceptive media is being used to turn the people against a justified protest. don’t fall for it.

[is-the-post-reliable]

(reposting as I am unable to reblog the original.)

requested by @kodicraft

🔶 Rating: Partially Reliable 🔶

The Devils Hole is home to the endangered Devils Hole Pupfish.

From the National Park Service's page on Devils Hole: 'Devils Hole--a detached unit of Death Valley National Park--is habitat for the only naturally occurring population of the endangered Devils Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis).'

The existence of the pupfish does prevent the pumping of groundwater in the area, after a legal battle. I am not sure this would apply to all mining.

From a High Country News article on the pupfish: 'The Cappaert case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, testing the power of the Antiquities Act and the weight of the new Endangered Species Act. In 1976, the High Court affirmed the federal government’s right to maintain water levels sufficient to support the pupfish, even at the expense of water rights held by nearby ranchers.'

The habitat of this fish is incredibly small. However, it is slightly larger than suggested, as the fish swim at least 20m deep; the rock shelf referenced is the only place where the fish feed and spawn in the wild.

From the same National Park Service page: 'Although pupfish have been found as deep as 66 feet (20 m), the fish forage and spawn exclusively on a shallow rock shelf near the surface, feeding on the algae and diatoms found there.'

It is true that multiple conservation attempts have failed. Previous attempts to breed or crossbreed the fish have not been successful.

From a National Park Foundation article on the pupfish: 'Despite past efforts to create a similar artificial platform for the pupfish, as well as attempts to breed Devils Hole pupfish and hybrids in captivity, this small ledge remains the sole spawning and feeding shelf for the fish.'

I have not been able to find any references to 'assassination attempts'. One individual did threaten to pour pesticide into Devil's Hole, but it seems this was never attemped. If anyone can find anything on this, please let me know, but in the mean time I have to say this claim is unsubstantiated.

From a High Country News article on an incident of tresspassing and the pupfish: 'A Pahrump newspaper editor even threatened to throw the pesticide Rotenone into the sunken cave to “make the pupfish a moot point.”'

The fencing was initially installed after two people drowned, not after an assassination attempt. Later, more fencing and security was installed after three men drunkenly tresspassed and killed a pupfish.

From the same National Park Service page: 'Subsequently, the Hole was fenced after two divers drowned in its water.'

From a High Country News article on the incident of tresspassing : 'Since the incident, Devils Hole has become an even more formidable fortress. The Park Service capped its towering fences with additional barbed wire. The public can only view the sunken cave from a distance now, more than 20 feet above it. And inside the fenced viewing area are even more cameras, motion sensors and “No Trespassing” signs.'

There is a breeding program at Ash Meadows Facility, where scientists have attempted to mimic the natural habitat of the pupfish.

From a National Geographic article on the breeding attempts: 'And when they built the Ash Meadows facility, the scientists tried to create a mirror image of Devil’s Hole, which meant bringing in water, substrate, and algae from the natural environment.'

It is possible that a different research/breeding facility is being referred to, but the Ash Meadows Facility does not seem to have a secret location. In fact, the facility is open to visitors, according to their website.

I wont attempt to fact check whether the cave is haunted, but I can confirm that at least two people drowned and were not recovered from Devils Hole. Whilst the cave is not truly bottomless, the bottom has not yet been found.

From an SFGATE article on Devils Hole: 'When the bottom of Devils Hole is one day found, the skeletons of two brothers-in-law may finally be recovered, fathoms below the frolicking pupfish.'

The breeding program has been more successful in recent years. This may be due to the discovery that diving beetles were eating the eggs and larvae, and the beetle population in the artificial environment being controlled. (This fact was not included in the original post, but I thought it was cool.)

From a National Geographic article on the breeding attempts: 'As Feuerbacher watched the infrared footage, which can visualize objects in the dark, a tiny pupfish larva smaller than a peppercorn flitted into the camera’s frame. This was big news. When a population gets as low as that of the pupfish, every animal—wild or captive, larva or adult—is critical to the species’ survival.

“I was pretty excited to see there was reproduction going on in the tank, and I just watched it for a little bit,” says Feuerbacher, a fish biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Then I saw a beetle swim past.”

It began circling the fish, and closing in.

“Then it just dove in and basically tore the fish in half right while I was watching,” says Feuerbacher.

[...]

During the first beetle collection, facility manager Jennifer Gumm says they caught 500 beetles in three hours. And on the very next pupfish egg collection, which is done by leaving out pieces of carpet that the fish like to lay their eggs on, the team retrieved close to 40 pupfish eggs.

Before this, they had been lucky to find four or five pupfish eggs during a refuge collection. Usually, it was zero.'

[destielmemenews]

PolitiFact

[awritersrejections]

Not to kill the joke, but his last words were recorded as "Es ist gut" which means "It is good" in German. Like, still enjoy the Mood of it all, but small fact check (source)

bro same

[reasonsforhope]

Given the misinformation that's been going around and will be going around, thought this might be helpful to some people

For a lot of reasons, I'm very good at this/at searching, to the point where I have worked as a professional fact-checker for two different publishers. So, here goes:

My Article Fact-Checking Protocol

Thorough Version

Read the full article. Keep an eye out for emotionally loaded words, and all-or-nothing language

Keep an eye out or anything that sounds too good to be true, and in contrast, anything that sounds so awful it must be true

Run the website/source through the amazing Media Bias/Fact Check. They'll tell you about a publication's bias and history of accuracy

Go to the website's home page and read through the headlines. Look at what topics they cover/prioritize, sensationalist headlines, and whether they're framing anything in a way that feels odd/off to you

Do a search related to the topic. This can be keywords, a question, or even just copy-paste the article title (Recommended: use DuckDuckGo so the results don't change based on what Google thinks they can sell you)

If multiple highly credible sources that say the same thing pop up, and there's no major societal biases that might affect the coverage of the topic in those sources (e.g. anything related to the Israel-Palestine conflict/Palestinian genocide, no matter which side), then I'm done!

If there are major societal biases, or I can't get a consensus of sufficiently credible sources, then I do some combination of:

(1) search the topic again + the words "controversy" and/or "fake"

(2) search the opposite of the topic, or do some sort of other filtered search

(3) look up a sufficiently credible news outlet with the opposite point of view of my source, and see what they have to say

(4) if it's a big enough topic, start by looking up 2 of the top national papers and 1 major paper for your region (I usually do the ones in the US, because that's where I am In the US: the LA Times, the Washington Post, and the NY Times)

Adjust "news" to "relevant type of source, e.g. tech, environmental" as relevant for all of the above options

If no red flags come up, and it's a topic I understand enough to smell huge bullshit,

Then I'm usually done!

If there are red flags, or I actually need a certain amount of detail/understanding, then it gets more complicated, but that would be a whole other thing to break down and such

or

tl;dr

Quick Version

Read the full article. Keep an eye out for emotionally loaded words, and all-or-nothing language

Keep an eye out or anything that sounds too good to be true, and in contrast, anything that sounds so awful it must be true.

If I don't know the website:

Run the website/source through the amazing Media Bias/Fact Check. They'll tell you about a publication's bias and history of accuracy

If I trust the source, but something else pinged my radar:

Do a quick web search to verify anything that sounds suspicious or too good/bad to be true (Recommended: use DuckDuckGo)

[positivelypresent]

Check your facts!

[parkchvnyeols]

FACT CHECK, NCT 127 (2023)

[katboykirby]

Sharing the thread I wrote over on Twitter, since there's been a lot of misinformation around Nightbringer recently

I see a LOT of people accusing Nightbringer of existing purely for "greed" because Solmare is "money hungry" when that isn't even remotely close to the truth.

And of course, legitimate criticisms are valid! No game is perfect (and I'm certainly not trying to claim that OM or NB are flawless) but criticism based on misinformation isn't helpful for anybody ✌️

[blumineck]

I must have been sent this video a dozen times, so here’s my take!

(Featuring my first ever double-curved shot!)

Patrons get more content!