The world of news is complex – and false stories and images are often widely shared on social media. Blasting News’s editorial team spots the most popular hoaxes and misleading information every week to help you discern truth from falsehood. Here are some of the most shared false claims of this week, of which none are legit.

Please send us tips or claims to check at this email factcheck@blastingnews.com or at this X/Twitter account @BNFactCheck. Read this page to better understand our submission guidelines.

Undocumented immigrants do not receive $2,200 a month from the U.S. federal government

False claim: Social media users in the United States have shared the claim that President Joe Biden's administration is giving $2,200 a month in federal benefits to immigrants who entered the country illegally.

Truth:

  • An internet search shows that the claim began to make the rounds on social media after an interview by retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
  • In a video published on August 21 on Carlson's account on X, Macgregor says: “We hand every alleged asylum seeker – illegal migrant – pouring into the border in Texas or wherever else, we hand them when they get there $2,200 and we put them on that $2,200 diet from there on out per month."
  • According to data published by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, immigrants who entered the U.S. without authorization do not, with rare exceptions, have access to federal benefits.
  • Under U.S. federal law, only those who have applied for asylum or have been granted refugee status, as well as some Cuban and Haitian citizens, are eligible for federal financial assistance.

Britain’s National Health Service did not find 700 Nigerian nurses working with fake qualifications

False claim: Social media users in the United Kingdom have shared the claim that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has discovered 700 Nigerian nurses who allegedly falsified their qualifications in order to work in the UK.

Truth:

  • Approached by Reuters, the NHS refused to comment on the matter, but referred to an investigation by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), an independent body that regulates and supervises more than 780,000 nursing and midwifery professionals in the UK.
  • In a document published on its website on September 20, 2023, the NMC claims to have uncovered widespread suspected exam fraud at the Yunnik Technologies Test Centre in Ibadan, Nigeria.
  • According to the text, “of the 515 professionals on the register, 48 achieved their score in a time we believe is more likely than not to indicate that they obtained their result fraudulently.”
  • The NMC also states that the 48 nurses suspected of fraud will be assessed by an independent review panel. The other 467 registered professionals, who are not suspected of fraud, will be forced to retake the test.

Nobel Prize in Medicine winners did not receive the award wearing masks

False claim: Social media users in Italy have shared the claim that Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó and American doctor Drew Weissman, winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine for research that helped develop messenger RNA vaccines – fundamental in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic –, received the prize wearing masks.

According to the posts, which feature an image of Karikó and Weissman wearing masks and holding an award, it indicates that both do not trust the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

Truth:

  • A reverse image search shows that the picture shared on social media was published on Alamy on April 13, 2022, and is credited to Associated Press photographer Eugene Hoshiko.
  • According to the picture caption, Karikó and Weissman are seeing posing with their trophies during the Japan Prize Award ceremony on April 13, 2022, in Tokyo.
  • A video of the ceremony, available on the Japan Prize Award YouTube channel, shows that not only Karikó and Weissman, but all the people present at the event, were wearing masks, not because they don't trust COVID-19 vaccines, but because at the time the Japanese government still required masks to be worn in public places, a measure that was only relaxed in March 2023.

Picture does not show Christians burned alive by Muslims in Nigeria

False claim: Social media users in Brazil have shared a picture, accompanied by the claim that the image shows the bodies of dozens of Christians who were allegedly burned alive by Sunni Muslims in Nigeria.

Truth:

  • A reverse image search shows that the picture shared on social media was published on Shutterstock on July 4, 2010, and is credited to European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) photographer Alain Wandimoyi.
  • According to the picture caption, the image shows the burned bodies of victims of the explosion of a tanker truck carrying fuel near the village of Sange in the Democratic Republic of Congo on July 3, 2010.
  • According to media reports, the tanker overturned while trying to overtake a bus on a dirt road, causing the fuel to leak and the subsequent fire and explosion that left at least 230 people dead.

Video of India's Chandrayaan-3 landing on the Moon does not prove that the mission was a hoax

False claim: Social media users around the world have shared the official video released by the Indian Space Agency (ISRO) on the occasion of the Chandrayaan-3 mission landing on the Moon on August 23, accompanied by claims that the images, dubbed as “PlayStation 1 graphics”, would be proof that the mission was a hoax and that the Moon landing never happened.

Truth:

  • Contrary to what posts on social media suggest, the video released by ISRO on August 23 was only a digital simulation of the Chandrayaan-3 mission landing on the Moon, as highlighted by media outlets such as the BBC and Hindustan Times.
  • At no time were the images released, either by ISRO or the press, as real footage of the landing, not least because there are no cameras on the Moon that could record the event.
  • After landing near the lunar South Pole, the Chandrayaan-3 mission began transmitting images and scientific data, which ISRO published on its website and social media accounts.
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