Through the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), the EU supports a European network of factcheckers, including TheJournal in Ireland. For a monthly roundup of European factchecks, visit the main EDMO website. Here, we highlight recent pieces by TheJournal FactCheck team.
Debunked: Viral posts misstate the date, cause and even the country of the Enoch Burke saga
Published: 28 August – by Shane Raymond
Numerous online posts have misrepresented Enoch Burke’s release, which was ordered by an Irish court in July, not a UK court in August. His imprisonment was not related to his religious beliefs or pronoun usage, but resulted from multiple findings of contempt for trespassing at a school in violation of court injunctions.
Debunked: Fake videos of the Nepal floods viewed on social media tens of millions of times
Published: 1 September – by Shane Raymond
Viral clips said to show the recent Nepal and Tibet floods, which have left more than 1,000 people dead and 4,400 missing, are misleading. Some are AI-generated, including one viewed over two million times that appears to show a jet bombing a dam; Lead Stories traced that clip to a post from May, months before the flooding. Others are genuine footage recycled from earlier disasters in Nepal, the United States and Chile, and several have been reshared to push claims that the flooding was caused deliberately.
Debunked: Video said to show a firearms sale by a Dublin mosque doesn’t show firearms or a mosque
Published: 2 September – by Shane Raymond
A video seen more than 1.3 million times on X claimed to show three Muslim men selling real firearms outside a mosque in Tallaght, Dublin, with some versions saying it showed foreigners who had come “to kill us”. Gardaí investigated and found the rifle in the clip was an imitation gun. The footage was not filmed near a mosque at all, but in a car park outside a takeaway in the Hibernian Industrial Estate, identified from the brickwork, fencing and a door shutter visible in the video.