Skeptic and general random walker. (In case you wondered about the name, I used to post on the Fortean Times board. :-) )

Joined October 2008
This viral video claiming a $140m corruption case in the Ukrainian military is false and likely a new creation of the long-running Russian disinformation operation known as Storm-1516. Although the fake video has the logo of a genuine Ukrainian news website called the New Voice of Ukraine, it is in fact a fabricated report that was never produced by the Ukrainian outlet. To make this fake story even more believable, the operation has also created a fake web page made to look like the real website of the New Voice Ukraine, featuring the fabricated report (first screenshot). On its genuine website, the New Voice of Ukraine has clarified that it never produced this $140m corruption report, and that the web page carrying its logo is entirely fake (second screenshot).
This quoted post is unavailable.
10
214
18
451
25,914
Earth's shadow, seen on 22 yrs of partial lunar eclipses. Very cool montage to reveal the undeniable shape of our home planet :) Well done, Tim Martin @elonuniversity! info: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260825.…
14
114
11
1,040
54,948
This is not misinformation. That's what I normally cover - something out of context, an opinion quoted as fact, or a deliberate misinterpretation... This is none of those. This is full-on disinformation. Because that is NOT from the Express. It is entirely fake😱 🧵 1/10
16
214
29
434
65,551
This video, which has a million views and counting, is an example of AI-generated slop. There are several clues in the video, including the military patch and the US flag. But this specific genre of video has been a prolific source of AI slop videos for engagement farmers for some time. Simply look for phrases such as "child soldier salute" or "respect has no age" on platforms like Facebook, YouTube or TikTok, and see the litany of similar AI clips and their sizeable view counts.
Respect has no age 🫡✨
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Videos captioned "Respect has no age" depicting a child saluting an elderly veteran are AI-generated for entertainment. facebook.com/MattSteff/post… facebook.com/fabiosaliveeas…
3
56
2
181
23,027
Replying to @MarkoS2075
This is a fake AI-generated image. Sadly, social platforms continue to allow fabricated AI images and videos of Auschwitz and other Holocaust-related sites to spread without effective moderation or clear warning labels. By failing to act, platforms are not merely hosting historical distortions. It is helping them reach audiences, gain visibility, and replace authentic historical evidence with fiction. This undermines public understanding of the history of Auschwitz, disrespects the memory of the victims, and contributes to the erosion of historical truth. Follow @AuschwitzMuseum. We preserve the authentic site, commemorate the victims, and share evidence-based knowledge about the history of Auschwitz.
3
62
2
789
28,173
A viral video claims that three quarters of pregnant women vaccinated against Covid experience miscarriages. As we explain, that’s not true at all. There’s no link between the vaccine and miscarriage. fullfact.org/health/covid-va…
56
87
7,095
Someone has been arrested in connection with the death of Ann Widdecombe - that means publishing anything, including posts on X, which risks seriously prejudicing a trial, is an offence. It also doesn’t help her friends and family in obtaining justice. Link in next post…
34
109
22
387
66,700
A video claims to show massive crowds "shutting down London" to demand halal food standards. But this supposed footage is AI-generated and entirely fake, despite hundreds of comments appearing to believe it’s genuine. fullfact.org/culture-and-soc…
11
257
10
557
16,331
A video of people kneeling in the street has been shared with false claims it shows Polish people paying tribute to Henry Nowak. This isn’t correct. The clip actually shows a Corpus Christi procession in the country. fullfact.org/crime/video-cor…
2
7
18
4,403
If someone on the internet told me to drink raw milk, avoid vaccines and then tried to sell me medicine meant for farm animals I would legitimately think they were trying to kill me.
395
1,147
41
11,237
125,168
No two 'birds' are absolutely identical hence there is no actual gold standard for what a 'bird' should look like, just a grouping of morphological features that if satisfied should falsify their physical existence. #birdsarentreal
1
2
6
542
The Station Nightclub fire happened in 2003. No smartphones. No Instagram. 100 people still died because they stood watching the flames, thinking it was part of the show. I've retrofitted fire safety for some of the largest property portfolios in the UK post-grenfell. You are confusing stupidity with biology, physics, and catastrophic design failures. Here is the actual science of what you are watching: 1. When the music keeps playing and staff don't panic, the human brain overrides flight instincts to fit the threat into a normal context. This is called normalcy bias. These kids froze to process conflicting social cues, not to post for likes. They were likely already filming. They were also likely drunk. 2. We explicitly design buildings to account for this hesitation (pre-movement time). Fire safety codes assume people will wait before running. In a compliant building, you can assume up to a minute or two before egress commences. Sprinklers and detection systems are designed specifically to buy that time. 3. The reason the time buffer didn't exist here is the material. That ceiling is polyurethane foam. It doesn't burn linearly; it hits flashover (1,100°F) in under 90 seconds. It's essentially solid gasoline. The room would have exploded for all intents and purposes. Way before anyone could reasonably evacuate. 4. We calculate exit widths based on how many people can physically pass through a door per minute (flow rate) versus how fast a fire spreads. With foam fires, the available safe egress time drops to almost zero. Even if they had reacted instantly, the crowd density would have choked the exits before the room cleared. 5. In any normal building fire, especially one that starts off small, you expect a responsible adult to put it out, or sprinklers to do the same. When there's a pan fire in a restaurant, you don't run out in case the entire building suddenly explodes. No reasonable person should have expected this unless they were the owner and knew how the building was designed. Those poor teenagers likely passed out from smoke inhalation soon after this video. If they didn't, they would have been caught in a catastrophic explosion as they crammed into the single tiny exit. They didn't die because of Instagram. They died because the physics of the fire moved faster than human bodies can physically squeeze through a door, and a catastrophic disregard of safe design principles meant they never stood a chance.
This clip truly epitomizes the age of Instagram stupidity, where the urge to record stuff is now powerful enough to override instincts programmed into humans since the dawn of time. xitter.cf/userilsyzhzhej/status/…
835
7,228
617
47,588
4,227,738
A man hailed as a hero for tackling one of the Bondi Beach suspects has been misidentified in posts circulating online. The posts falsely claim that he’s named ‘Edward Crabtree’ - when his identity has been confirmed as Ahmed al Ahmed. fullfact.org/world/bondi-bea…
4
17
34
7,534
4 million views and 50,000 likes for this utterly baseless post which claims one of the Bondi Beach shooters "is an IDF soldier that served in Gaza". Please verify what you see on social media after a shooting and wait for information from official authorities and sources.
39
273
14
1,267
126,123
The claim that President Zelensky has bought Bill Cosby's house in New York is false, and originated from a fake news website posing as Page Six. The fake story is likely the work of Storm-1516, a long-running Russian disinformation operation targeting Ukraine.
Being a comedian in Ukraine clearly pays very well. Zelenskyy reportedly acquires Bill Crosby’s New York townhouse for $29m.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Zelenskyy did not purchase Bill Cosby's NYC townhouse. No property records show any link. It sold for $28M to an undisclosed buyer in Nov 2025. The story comes from a fake video on a counterfeit Page Six site, tied to Russian disinformation. techarp.com/fact-check/zel… nypost.com/2025/11/17/rea…
22
284
6
1,407
59,443
As their uniforms say, those are Garda officers in Ireland, not British police.
British police arrive at a teacher’s home for the second time to arrest him for refusing to call a student “they”
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This did not happen in the UK/Britain. This happened in Ireland as is evidenced by the police officers wearing Garda uniforms - Ireland's national police service. garda.ie/en x.com/DefiantLs/stat… The teacher in question was arrested for ignoring a court order, not for refusing to use preferred pronouns. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
6
37
201
23,972
This video, which claims President Zelensky has a Russian passport, is fake. The editor of The New Voice of Ukraine has confirmed that the video wasn't produced by the outlet, and @DarrenLinvill says it's likely the work of a Russian disinformation campaign known as Storm-1516.
⚠️ 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 ⚠️ 🇺🇦🇷🇺 | Anonymous leaked that Zelensky has a Russian passport and owns elite apartment in Moscow… Nothing says “master plan” like secretly buying a Moscow penthouse in 2019 and then spending years fighting Russia. Truly 4D chess…
18
127
3
537
38,995
⚡️A fake is spreading online, claiming that hackers have "found" the russian passport of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, issued in the temporarily occupied Crimea in 2015. ✅ This information is not true.
56
265
20
738
25,309
Replying to @camillahmturner
Can you show where the "UKHSA argued that releasing figures would lead to ‘distress or anger’ of bereaved relatives if connection were discovered"? AFAIK their argument was that people could identify dead individuals and contact their relatives, and *that* would cause distress?
5
12
2
51
2,056
Amazing. We live in a time where we can detect and track an interstellar object using a satellite orbiting Mars. @esa
#3IATLAS update: we've just pinpointed the comet's path with 10 times more accuracy, using data from our @ESA_ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft.😎 esa.int/Space_Safety/Planeta… @esascience @ESA_TGO @esaoperations
30
210
4
1,934
112,178