Dec 31, 2020
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
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Nashville explosion was caused by a bomb, not a missile
CLAIM: Video shows that Nashville explosion was caused by a missile or some kind of directed energy weapon.
THE FACTS: The explosion was caused by a bomb inside a parked recreational vehicle in downtown Nashville. Social media users shared grainy surveillance video from the Dec. 25 explosion, and pointed to a streak of smoke to falsely claim that the blast was caused by a bomb or a directed energy weapon. “Looking like a missile strike now. Video proof. Explains why the airspace was locked down,” wrote one Twitter user on Dec. 26. Similar false claims circulated widely on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Parler. Police were responding to a report of shots fired when they encountered the RV blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Police have identified Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, who was killed in the explosion, as the person responsible for the blast. A motive has not been determined. Surveillance video from a Metro Nashville Police Department camera at the intersection of 2nd Avenue North and Commerce Street captured the explosion and offers proof that the blast came from the parked recreational vehicle. Social media users were sharing a different grainy, black-and-white surveillance video from a local business that showed the explosion from a distance. WKRN-TV, a Nashville television station, aired the footage. Posts pointed to what appears to be a streak of smoke captured in the video, falsely asserting it was a “missile trail” from a strike in the area. Other posts said a directed energy weapon caused the damage. A frame-by-frame review of the video revealed the smoke was ascending from the source of the blast. “That is not a missile strike. Missiles don’t leave smoke trails as they come back down,” Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies told The Associated Press in an email. The explosion outside an AT&T building in downtown Nashville, interfered with communications in several Southern states, damaged dozens of buildings and injured three people, the AP reported. Some posts falsely alleged a missile targeted AT&T because the company got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved to the AT&T building in Nashville that was damaged in the explosion.
— The Associated Press
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AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site
CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee — to the same AT&T building that was damaged in a Christmas morning explosion.
THE FACTS: AT&T did not have a contract to audit Dominion machines and was not holding Dominion machines in its Nashville building, both companies confirmed to The Associated Press. But as federal officials work to piece together a motive for the Christmas morning blast that rattled downtown Nashville, including damage to an AT&T-owned building, social media users have made baseless claims connecting the explosion to voting machines used in the Nov. 3 election. “AT&T got a contract to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week,” read one post. “So, the explosion ‘just happened’ to be at the AT&T location where they ‘just so happen’ to control the cooling system for the super computer and house the dominion voting machines and drives for forensic audit…” Another groundless post reads: “Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T data center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion voting machines? That’s an interesting coincidence.” Spokespeople for AT&T and Dominion confirmed to the AP that AT&T had no contract to audit Dominion machines, and no Dominion machines were to be sent to Nashville. Some of the posts attempted to further link AT&T to Dominion by claiming a former owner of the AT&T building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. Cerberus Capital Management, the firm named in the posts, does not own Dominion, nor does it own the company that does own Dominion, Staple Street Capital. “Dominion has no connection to AT&T, the building, Nashville, family members of the Bidens or the Clintons, and Staple Street is not owned by Cerberus,” said Tony Fratto, a partner at the public relations firm Hamilton Place Strategies who emailed the AP on behalf of Dominion. “These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth.” Dominion has been the target of a wide range of false posts since American voters chose Joe Biden as their next president, despite no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election.
— Associated Press writer Ali Swenson reported from Seattle.
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Brother of Georgia SOS is not a Chinese tech firm executive
CLAIM: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has a brother, Ron, who works for a Chinese tech firm, Huawei.
THE FACTS: Social media posts and a fictitious story circulating online falsely claim that the top election official in Georgia has a brother named Ron, who works as an executive for the Chinese tech giant Huawei. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger does not have a brother named Ron, his office confirmed Wednesday. He has three sisters and a brother, his office said. A 2018 family obituary the AP reviewed also confirms his brother is not named Ron. Social media posts making the false claim suggest Raffensperger should be investigated because of his brother’s Huawei connection. The company has been at the center of rising tensions between the U.S. and Chinese over technology security. President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed restrictions on the Chinese company, cutting off its access to U.S. components and technology. Trump also tweeted out the false claim about Raffensperger’s brother on Tuesday night. “Now it turns out that Brad R’s brother works for China and they definitely don’t want ‘Trump’. So disgusting!” Trump said in his inaccurate tweet. Raffensperger, who oversees Georgia’s elections, has been the target of death threats and misinformation since President Donald Trump’s presidential race loss in Georgia by more than 11,000 votes. A spokesman for Huawei did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment.
— Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz reported from Chicago.
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Posts misrepresent study examining household coronavirus transmission
CLAIM: University of Florida researchers found “no asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread of Covid” in a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
THE FACTS: Social media users are misrepresenting a recent study, leading to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19. A false post that was shared on Dec. 27 reads: “University of Florida researchers have found no asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread of Covid. The study was published online by the Journal of the American Medical Association. This could change everything.” The post had amassed more than 35,000 retweets a day later, and was also shared widely on Facebook. Social media users shared the false post to justify arguments that shutting down businesses and schools during the pandemic was unnecessary. But a spokesperson for the network of journals published by the Journal of the American Medical Association confirmed to The Associated Press that no study with such conclusions had been published by the network. “Numerous reports support transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by individuals who are asymptomatic,” Deanna Bellandi, media relations manager for JAMA Network wrote in an email. “Claims that any JAMA Network journal has published evidence to the contrary is incorrect and misleading.” The false claims follow the release of a study by University of Florida researchers that was published on Dec. 14 on the website of JAMA Network Open, one of the journals in the JAMA network. The study analyzed data from 54 previous studies about household spread of SARS-CoV-2, and found rates of transmission to other household members was higher if the infected person had symptoms rather than was asymptomatic. The analysis also found transmission was higher between adults rather than children, and between spouses rather than other family contacts. The study did not conclude there is no asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread of COVID-19 as social media users claim it does. “No, no we didn’t say that,” said Natalie E. Dean, a co-author of the study and a University of Florida assistant professor of biostatistics “This is a misinterpretation of our message of our scientific findings and conclusions.” Dean said it is important for the public to understand her study was only analyzing household studies and there is limited data at this point. She said “there does seem to be evidence that people who never have symptoms do appear to be less infectious,” but she said that does not mean that people without symptoms cannot transmit the virus that causes COVID-19. “Certainly we are seeing presymptomatic transmissions before they develop symptoms,” Dean said, a point that is also made clearly in the article text. She called presymptomatic transmission “an important feature of this virus” and said “our policies need to reflect that.” People who are infected with COVID-19 but are not experiencing symptoms cannot know whether or not they will develop them. Dean noted that even if it is the case that people who have symptoms and are coughing are more infectious, someone without symptoms could wind up spreading the virus more if they are continuing to interact with other people. The published study says “important questions remain” about household spread, including how infectious asymptomatic, mildly ill and severely ill cases are.
— Associated Press writer Jude Joffe-Block reported from Berkeley, Calif.
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There were not more votes than voters in Pennsylvania
CLAIM: There were 205,000 more votes than voters in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.
THE FACTS: A misleading claim about election results based on incomplete data is circulating widely on social media a week before Congress meets to reaffirm Joe Biden’s decisive presidential win. The claim emerged in a Monday press release from Pennsylvania Republican state lawmakers, including state Rep. Frank Ryan. “A comparison of official county election results to the total number of voters who voted on Nov. 3, 2020, as recorded by the Department of State shows that 6,962,607 total ballots were reported as being cast, while DoS/SURE system records indicate that only 6,760,230 total voters actually voted,” the release said. The claim then spread to several right-wing websites and social media influencers, including Trump, whose tweet claiming Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than voters was retweeted more than 117,000 times. However, these claims rely on incomplete data, according to Wanda Murren, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of State, who called the lawmakers’ release “obvious misinformation.” It was not immediately clear where the numbers cited in the release originated and Ryan did not respond to a call seeking comment on Tuesday. However, the apparent reference to SURE (Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors) in Pennsylvania points to state data on the voting history of registered voters, which some large counties have not finished uploading yet. “These counties, which include Philadelphia, Allegheny, Butler and Cambria, would account for a significant number of voters,” Murren told The Associated Press in an emailed statement. “The numbers certified by the counties, not the uploading of voter histories into the SURE system, determines the ultimate certification of an election by the secretary.” The numbers certified by Pennsylvania counties in November show that more than 6.9 million voters cast ballots in the 2020 election, electing Biden the winner by more than 80,000 votes. Social media users in recent weeks have also made similar claims that there were more votes counted than registered voters in battleground states and key cities. Those claims are easily debunked. In Pennsylvania, for example, there were nearly 7 million votes cast. The total number of registered voters in 2020 was just over 9 million. “This obvious misinformation put forth by Rep. Ryan and others is the hallmark of so many of the claims made about this year’s presidential election,” Murren told the AP in an emailed statement. “When exposed to even the simplest examination, courts at every level have found these and similar conspiratorial claims to be wholly without basis.”
— Ali Swenson
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Posts falsely claim there are only 133 million registered voters in the US
CLAIM: There are 133 million registered voters in the United States so if President Donald Trump got 74 million votes, President-elect Joe Biden could not have received 81 million votes.
THE FACTS: The number of registered voters in the U.S. is much greater than 133 million. But false claims about the 2020 presidential election persist online, including the bogus allegation that vote tallies in the presidential race don’t add up because they exceed the total number of registered voters in the country. “Donald Trump got 74 million votes and There are 133 million registered voters in the USA,” reads a popular but inaccurate tweet that was shared thousands of times on both Twitter and Facebook. “If every single registered voter went out and voted there would only be 59 million votes left for Biden. How did he get 81 million votes?” The posts are false because they rely on an incorrect number of total registered voters. A survey of election officials from all over the country by the Election Assistance Commission found there were 211 million Americans on voter rolls ahead of the 2018 election. The 133 million figure shared on social media is also far lower than the more than 136 million ballots cast in the 2016 election. “The number of 133 million registered voters is plainly false,” said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who runs the election data site, U.S. Election Project. While experts all agree the 133 million figure is far too low for 2020, coming up with the precise number of American registered voters at a given moment is not straight forward. Each state manages its own voter rolls, and people are constantly registering, dying and moving to new states, leading to changes in the totals and duplications. Furthermore, states differ in how they manage their rolls. For example, some states have a category of registered voters who are marked as “inactive” and North Dakota does not have voter registration. Jonathan Robinson, lead research scientist at Catalist, which provides voter data and other services to civic and progressive organizations, said it is challenging to pinpoint the number of registered voters in the U.S. “These numbers are ever-evolving, there really isn’t one number,” Robinson said. Robinson estimates the number of registered voters ahead of the Nov. 3 election was somewhere between 195 million and 215 million, depending on how the data is analyzed and which suspected duplicate or ineligible voters were excluded. Brandi Travis, a spokesperson for the voter list vendor Aristotle, told the AP that the company has more than 215 million registered voters in its database. L2, another voter list vendor whose customers include the AP, estimated the number at eligible registrants at 200 million before the Nov. 3 election. Paul Westcott, L2 senior vice president, said that figure accounted for removing duplicate voters, people who have died and people who appeared on the rolls of more than one state due to a recent move. Most election researchers calculate voter turnout based on the number of eligible voters, rather than how many were registered to vote. The U.S. Elections Project estimates 239 million Americans were eligible to vote in the 2020 election based on their age, citizenship and criminal record, and that more than 159 million — or 67.7% — participated. According to Dec. 18 data from the AP, Biden received 81,281,888 votes and Trump received 74,223,251 votes.
— Jude Joffe-Block
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NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week
Dec 24, 2020
Here’s a look at false and misleading claims circulating online as news about COVID-19 vaccines and uncertainty around coronavirus relief in the U.S. dominate headlines. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
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No, a Tennessee nurse didn’t die after getting the vaccine
CLAIM: Tiffany Dover, a nurse manager in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who fainted after receiving her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, is now dead.
THE FACTS: Claims of Dover’s death have no basis in reality. She is alive and worked a shift at CHI Memorial Hospital on Monday, according to Lisa McCluskey, the hospital’s vice president of marketing communications. The claim emerged on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube over the weekend following videos that showed the nurse fainting on Dec. 17 several minutes after receiving the vaccine. It also appeared on Reddit, on a subreddit devoted to conspiracy theories, and on a website claiming to show obituaries of deceased people. Some posts used screenshots of Dover’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to claim she must be dead because she hadn’t posted in several days. Others shared screenshots from a public records website, suggesting the appearance of Dover’s name in search results somehow indicated she had died. These claims are bogus, McCluskey confirmed to The Associated Press. Dover told reporters after the fainting episode that she has a condition that can cause her to faint when she feels pain. “It’s common for me,” she told reporters. “I feel fine now.” In the days since then, CHI Memorial Hospital has confirmed Dover is doing well, sharing multiple tweets and a video of the nurse posing with colleagues on Monday afternoon. The CDC offers guidance on fainting after vaccination, which can be common. It says that although fainting has a variety of possible causes, “it is usually triggered by pain or anxiety.”
—Ali Swenson
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Doctor who vaccinated Pelosi didn’t leave cap on syringe
CLAIM: Photos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi getting the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine show that the doctor never removed the orange cap from the syringe, so she never actually received the shot.
THE FACTS: The doctor did not leave a cap on the syringe when Pelosi received her first dose of the two-part Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 18 in front of reporters. Photos and news reports clearly document every step of the process, from the moment Capitol physician Dr. Brian Monahan administered the shot to Pelosi posing with her vaccine card afterward. However, over the weekend, social media users began to share baseless theories that the doctor never removed an orange cap from the syringe, so Pelosi was not actually vaccinated. “Hard to get a shot with the cap still on,” read one post that circulated widely last weekend. “What in the Sam hill is going on here?” read another. “I want to be like Nancy Pelosi and get the vaccine with the cap on it too!” Some of the posts included photos that showed an orange section near the end of the syringe. However, that orange section is not a cap. Photos prove that; they show the needle emerging past it toward Pelosi’s arm. Instead, the orange piece is more likely the needle hub, a plastic piece that attaches the syringe to the needle. Pelosi acknowledged in a tweet that she received the first dose of the vaccine, saying, “Today, with confidence in science & at the direction of the Office of the Attending Physician, I received the COVID-19 vaccine.”
—Ali Swenson
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Photo of Pelosi at indoor gathering was taken last January
CLAIM: A photo shows Nancy Pelosi at an indoor party, defying COVID-19 restrictions.
THE FACTS: A photo of Pelosi at a gathering that was taken last January, before the U.S. introduced strict COVID-19 restrictions, was shared widely in recent weeks on Facebook with a false description. In reality, the out-of-focus photo shows Pelosi gesturing to a crowd at the opening party for Danny Meyer’s Maialino Mare, an Italian restaurant in Washington’s Navy Yard. Anna Spiegel, a food editor at Washingtonian magazine, took the photo on Jan. 7 and posted it that day on Twitter. That same image, however, was reposted more recently with the false claim that it shows Pelosi flouting social-distancing requirements. “Ladies and Gentlemen here’s your speaker of the house enjoying a party after she tells you you can’t have social gatherings,” states a false post on Facebook. Several Facebook users reposted the same false claim, sharing it thousands of times. It was also shared on Parler, a social media platform that’s popular among some conservatives. “Taken 3 days ago,” wrote one Facebook user who shared the false post last week. The post had over 2,400 shares. In fact, it was taken nearly a year ago, before restrictions around mask-wearing and social-distancing had been introduced. In March, the CDC recommended that gatherings of 50 or more people be canceled or postponed. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued an order on March 24 requiring non-essential businesses to temporarily close and prohibiting the gathering of 10 or more people.
—Arijeta Lajka
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No, Congress did not give itself a pay raise this year
CLAIM: Members of Congress gave themselves more than $40,000 in pay raises this year while only giving Americans $1,200 checks and voting to give just $600 more.
THE FACTS: Congress did not give itself a pay raise this year. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed by President Donald Trump in late March awarded $1,200 stimulus checks to most Americans. As news spread this week that Congress had passed a $900 billion year-end COVID relief package that would give $600 direct payments to those earning up to $75,000, a popular post on Facebook falsely claimed members of Congress had given themselves massive pay raises of more than $40,000. “They gave you $1200… six months later they’ll give you $600…in the same year they gave themselves $40k + pay raises,” reads the widely shared post. It concludes: “Are you pissed off yet? You should be.” House Appropriations Committee spokesperson Evan Hollander confirmed to The Associated Press that congressional salaries did not go up this year. “In fact, the legislation just passed specifically blocks the COLA that would otherwise have taken effect,” Hollander said, referring to an automatic “cost of living adjustment” in pay. Members of Congress have not received that adjustment since 2009. President Donald Trump has suggested he won’t sign the bipartisan COVID relief bill unless the stimulus payments are increased from $600 to $2,000. Most senators and members of the U.S. House earn an annual salary of $174,000. The speaker of the House earns $223,500, and the president pro tempore of the Senate and the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate earn $193,400. The false claim that Congress gave itself a raise also circulated online in March, when Congress passed the CARES Act.
—Jude Joffe-Block
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Biden family does not own Dominion Voting Systems
CLAIM: President-elect Joe Biden’s sister is married to Stephen Owens, the co-founder of the private equity firm Staple Street Capital, which owns Dominion Voting Systems.
THE FACTS: Dominion Voting Systems has been a target of a litany of false fraud claims since the 2020 election, and the latest theory that attempts to link the president-elect to the company is also bogus. Stephen Owens has no relationship to the Biden family, a spokesperson for Staple Street Capital confirmed. This false claim is based on two people sharing a common last name. “Biden’s sister is married to Stephen Owens, who owns Dominion Voting Systems,” read Facebook posts viewed hundreds of thousands of times this week. Another variation of the claim suggested an even more tenuous connection. “Valerie Biden Owens (Joe’s sister) is married to John Owens,” a Facebook post read. “His brother, Kevin Owens, is founder of Staple Street Investors, which owns Dominion Voting.” It’s true that the president-elect’s sister is married to a man named John Owens, according to a New York Times wedding announcement from 1975. According to the Times, the groom’s brother, R. Kevin Owens, was the best man. But Stephen Owens bears no relation to either of these individuals, according to Tony Fratto, a partner with the PR firm Hamilton Place Strategies who spoke to The Associated Press on behalf of Staple Street Capital and Dominion. Fratto said Staple Street Capital co-founder Stephen Owens has no relationship with the Biden family. In a fact-checking page on its website, Dominion says that it is not affiliated with or owned by any political figures or political parties.
—Ali Swenson
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Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck