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.

No evidence Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and the Chiefs are part of a plan to help Biden get reelected

False claim: As the Kansas City Chiefs secured their spot in Super Bowl LVIII, right-wing political and media figures started to share the claim that this year’s NFL's championship game is rigged to benefit the Democrats in November’s presidential election.

The relationship between Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce and pop singer Taylor Swift was used as an alleged evidence of that. “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months,” former Republican presidential candidate and Trump supporter Vivek Ramaswamy posted on his X account on January 29.

Truth:

  • Named by Time magazine as 2023 person of the year, Taylor Swift is currently one of the world's most influential celebrities. After declaring her support for Democratic candidates in the 2018 elections and for Joe Biden in 2020, the artist has become a frequent target of conspiracy theories from the American far right.
  • On January 9, for example, Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested that Swift was a Pentagon “psy-op” asset who is using her fan base to drum up support for Biden. Asked about the issue the following day, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told Politico: “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off,” referencing one of Swift's biggest hits.
  • Two-time Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce also became the target of attacks from the American right after starring last September in an ad promoting the double dose of the flu and COVID-19 vaccines, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Kansas City Chiefs secured their spot in this year’s Super Bowl – their second straight Super Bowl appearance and fourth in the last five year – after defeating the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday. “Today we weren't good enough. We didn't win the game. Congratulations to the Chiefs, they won the game,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said after the game.

Video does not show “combat ready” tanks on the Texas-Mexico border

False claim: Amid growing tension in recent weeks between Texas Gov.

Gregg Abbott and the US federal government over how to deal with the migration issue on the border with Mexico, social media users have shared a video showing tanks moving in a desert area, accompanied by the claim that the images were taken on the Texas-Mexico border. Some of the posts claim that the “Texas Defense Forces tanks” are “combat ready in response to the possible military presence of the Biden administration in the state.”

Truth:

  • A reverse image search shows that a higher-quality version of the same video was shared on TikTok in November 2023, months before the current tensions between Texas officials and the White House.
  • In the clip shared on TikTok, a sign by the side of the road reads “O'Higgins” and “Calama,” two cities located in Chile.

Germany's federal court has not ruled that the measles virus does not exist

False claim: Social media users around the world have shared a screenshot of an alleged news article claiming that the “German Federal Supreme Court” confirmed in a recent ruling that the measles virus does not exist.

Truth:

  • An internet search shows that the screenshot shared on social media is from an article published on January 21, 2017 by the website AnonHQ, which is famous for promoting anti-vaccine content and conspiracy theories.
  • The text claims that German biologist Stefan Lanka – a notorious anti-vaccine activist who publicly said that the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS did not exist – won a case in 2016 at the “German Federal Supreme Court”, which allegedly declared in its ruling that there was no evidence of the existence of the measles virus.
  • First, the highest court of civil and criminal law in Germany is not called the “Federal Supreme Court,” but the “Federal Court of Justice” (Bundesgerichtshof, in German).
  • In November 2011, in a post on the web, Lanka offered a reward of 100,000 euros to anyone who provided proof of the existence of the measles virus. In January 2012, then medical student David Bardens responded to the challenge, presenting six studies that provided proof of the existence of the measles virus. In March 2012, Lanka said that the evidence presented did not meet the requirements of the challenge and therefore would not pay the reward, which led Bardens to take the case to the German courts.
  • On March 12, 2015 the Ravensburg Regional Court ruled in Bardens' favor, requiring Lanka to pay the 100,000 euro reward. Lanka appealed and, on February 16, 2016 the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart overturned the Ravensburg court's decision, stating that the studies presented by Bardens did not meet the criteria established by Lanka.
  • According to local press reports at the time, Judge Karl-Heinz Oleschkewitz, then president of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court, said that the decision was “purely legal,” linked to the rules imposed by Lanka to award the prize money, and there was no assessment of the merits of the existence or not of the measles virus. Bardens tried to take the case to the Federal Court of Justice, which rejected his appeal in December 2016.

WEF’s Klaus Schwab has not admitted that a “political revolution” is destroying his “Great Reset” agenda

False claim: Social media users around the world have shared a screenshot of an alleged news article claiming that the CEO and founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, had admitted that a “political revolution” is destroying his “Great Reset” agenda.

Truth:

  • An internet search shows that the article was originally published on January 19, 2023 on the website The People's Voice – previously called Your News Wire and NewsPunch –, famous for promoting disinformation and conspiracy theories.
  • The article presents as alleged evidence of the claim a 38-second clip from a speech by Schwab, published on January 18, 2023 by an X account that shares far-right content and conspiracy theories.
  • During the clip, Schwab appears saying: “You have this anti-system movement. What we are seeing is a revolution against the system. So fixing the present system is not enough. Now, there is of course an anti-system which is called libertarianism, which means to tear down everything, which creates some kind of influence of government into private lives. It's dismantling the system.”
  • A reverse image search shows that the full video of Schwab's speech was originally published on March 9, 2017 on the World Governments Summit YouTube channel. At no point in the recording does Schwab talk about the “Great Reset,” a term that would only be coined in 2020 to represent a World Economic Forum project focused on, in the body's own words, “urgently build the foundations of our economic and social system for a fairer, sustainable and more resilient post-COVID future.”

US supermarket did not start selling “doomsday” emergency food kits

False claim: Social media users in Brazil have shared a video in which a man shows emergency food kits in a supermarket.

According to the man, this type of food has recently started to be sold in Walmart stores in the United States. The posts claim that the sale of this “doomsday” emergency food kits is an indication of the imminent threat of a global catastrophe.

Truth:

  • In the video shared on social media, it can be seen that the products on sale are from a company called Augason Farms, which has been making emergency food kits since the 1970s.
  • A search for the keywords “Walmart” and “Augason Farms” brings up a video published on YouTube on January 29, 2013 showing the same emergency food kits being sold eleven years ago in a Walmart store.
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