“New Study: Arctic Was Much Warmer 6000 Years Ago… 90% Of Glaciers, Ice Caps Smaller Than Present Or Absent!” says the headline of an April 11, 2022 articleon Watts Up with That?, a website that features content describing the idea that humans are causing global warming as a lie, and saying climate science is being misrepresented and exaggeratedto cause panic.
Society
Flight simulation fans frequently record their screens and share dramatic crashes or near-crashes on YouTube or other platforms. But viewers might not always know the context and could believe they are watching real events.
“The video shows the Ukrainian army preparing a prop for a staged shooting,” reads a simplified Chinese post on April 7 on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.
The claim was shared here by an Australia-based Facebook user on March 28, 2022.
“I have never worn sunscreen and I never will. Because sunscreen causes cancer, not the sun,” says a March 30, 2022 Facebook post.
“‘Endless Love’ sung by Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky & wife Olena for each other & for Ukraine,” says a March 8, 2022 Facebook post featuring a video of a man and a woman performing in a studio.
“Ukraine faking Russian civilian massacres for pity and more money from international community,” reads a post on BitChute from February 28.
Social media posts have shared a photo purporting to show a mass demonstration against Covid-19 restrictions in the Austrian capital Vienna in November 2021. The claim is false; the image was taken in Moscow in 1991, during a protest against then Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
As the highly contagious Omicron Covid-19 variant pushed governments to speed up rollouts of booster jabs, social media posts purported to share a poster issued by Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) warning that the vaccines “cause Bell’s palsy”. The claim is false; Britain’s health department and local authorities in the town where the poster was displayed said it was not made by the NHS. Bell’s palsy, a condition that causes temporary facial drooping, is a rare side effect of Covid-19 vaccines.
A segment of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony has been misrepresented in social media posts that claim it shows a “giant figure of death holding a needle” foreshadowing the Covid-19 pandemic. The claim is misleading; the cloaked figure in the ceremony was a puppet holding a wand, representing Harry Potter’s antagonist Voldemort, who appeared alongside various villains from children’s literature.