MEBRO · DISINFO DESK
Investigations
Long-form dossiers on the hoaxes, deepfakes, and death rumors that go viral — each one stamped with a verdict and printed with every source on the record.
Technology & AI
LLMO & GEO: How Companies Game AI Search Results
A Wall Street Journal investigation, Harvard research, and a Microsoft security study reveal how businesses pay to manipulate ChatGPT and AI search results through seeded content, hidden prompts, and memory poisoning — documented across multiple independent, verified sources.
FILED SEP 11, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 11, 2026 · 24 SOURCES
Technology & AI
Which AI Can You Trust? An LLM Vulnerability Ranking
Independent ranking of Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, and xAI on safety, transparency, hallucination rates, and resistance to manipulation.
FILED SEP 11, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 11, 2026 · 32 SOURCES
Technology & AI
How LLMs Fight Back: Defenses Against Data Manipulation
From RLHF to watermarking — the arms race to secure AI. All 12 tested defenses were broken by adaptive attacks. Constitutional AI shifts to reason-based alignment. RAG still hallucinates 17-33% of the time. The honest verdict on what's working and what's not.
FILED SEP 11, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 11, 2026 · 25 SOURCES
Viral Misinformation
Krakatau Really Erupted. The Viral 'Footage' Was AI, Recycled From Ten Months Earlier.
As Indonesia's Anak Krakatau volcano stranded 270,000 travelers and grounded eight airports, a synthetic video with no connection to the real eruption raced across TikTok as if it were live coverage of the disaster.
FILED SEP 11, 2026 · 3 SOURCES
Conspiracy & Hoaxes
The Merz-Epstein Photo Is Fake — For the Fourth Time This Year
A black-and-white image claiming to show German Chancellor Friedrich Merz posing with Jeffrey Epstein at a 2014 BlackRock event went viral again in early September. It's a Google AI composite of two unrelated real photos that fact-checkers have now debunked four separate times since February.
FILED SEP 11, 2026 · 4 SOURCES
Politics & Policy
Liberation Day Address Claims: A Comprehensive Fact-Check
Comprehensive fact-check of Trump's April 2, 2025 'Liberation Day' tariff announcement — the chart, the revenue promise, who really pays — and the Supreme Court ruling that ultimately struck the tariffs down.
FILED SEP 10, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 10, 2026 · 10 SOURCES
Viral Misinformation
LA Wildfires Misinformation January 2025: Complete Fact-Check
Comprehensive debunking of January 2025 LA wildfire misinformation including AI fake images, DEI conspiracy theories, geo-engineered fire claims, and Chinese-language disinformation.
FILED SEP 10, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 10, 2026 · 13 SOURCES
Politics & Policy
Los Angeles ICE Raids and Protests, 2025: Fact vs. Fiction
A verified fact-check of the June 2025 Los Angeles ICE raids and protests: what DHS, Human Rights Watch, and federal courts actually confirmed, and which viral claims turned out to be false or misattributed.
FILED SEP 10, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 10, 2026 · 12 SOURCES
Technology & AI
OpenAI Says Its AI Cracked a 90-Year Math Problem. Mathematicians Aren't Convinced.
OpenAI spent an estimated $15-22 million in compute and 10,000 AI agents chasing a Millennium Prize problem, triggered by a rumor about rival Anthropic that turned out to be false. Now it's accused of racing past two human researchers, one of them at Anthropic, to get there.
FILED SEP 10, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 10, 2026 · 3 SOURCES
Politics & Policy
Trump's "$20 Trillion" Investment Claim Keeps Growing. The Evidence Still Isn't.
At the Republican midterm convention, Trump said his administration secured "over $20 trillion" in investment since January 2025. The White House's own tally is about half that, and analysts say even that figure is inflated.
FILED SEP 10, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 10, 2026 · 4 SOURCES
International
John Mark Dougan: American Fugitive Running Russian Disinformation
Dougan served as a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy before fleeing prosecution for Russia in 2016, where he later gained asylum and reported citizenship and built a network of fake news sites tied to the Kremlin's Storm-1516 disinformation operation.
FILED SEP 9, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 9, 2026 · 7 SOURCES
Politics & Policy
No Record Exists of the 9/11 Rescue Crew Trump Says He Sent
Days before the 25th anniversary of the attacks, Trump told Fox News he deployed his own construction workers to Ground Zero and was carried to safety by firefighters. Two decades of fact-checking has never turned up a witness, a work order, or a fire department record.
FILED SEP 9, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 9, 2026 · 5 SOURCES
Media & Platforms
Jay-Z Fired by Apple Music? How Satire Becomes Misinformation
Forensic analysis of a viral satire-to-misinformation case: America's Last Line of Defense fabricated a claim that Apple Music fired Jay-Z after Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance. How screenshots strip disclaimers and political polarization make satire indistinguishable from fake news.
FILED SEP 8, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 8, 2026 · 28 SOURCES
Media & Platforms
The Iran War Fake Video Flood: How Games, AI, and Old Footage Rewrote a Real Conflict
Forensic analysis of the fake video flood during the 2026 Iran conflict: War Thunder clips, Arma 3 footage, recycled explosions, and AI-generated propaganda reaching 100M+ views
FILED SEP 8, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 8, 2026 · 33 SOURCES
Media & Platforms
Propaganda Wars: How a Viral TikTok Exposed the US-Iran Information Battlefield
A TikTok account spliced together White House 'slopaganda' and Iran's IRGC-linked Lego animation — both produced during an active war. We traced both videos to their sources, verified military claims, and mapped the propaganda techniques. Verdict: DUAL PROPAGANDA — confirmed.
FILED SEP 8, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 8, 2026 · 31 SOURCES
Technology & AI
Sam Altman Says One Almond Costs More Water Than 38,000 ChatGPT Queries. The Math Doesn't Hold Up.
OpenAI's CEO went on a podcast and downplayed AI's water footprint with a viral almond comparison, right as California weighs forcing data centers to disclose their usage. Fact-checkers say his numbers are skewed on both sides of the comparison.
FILED SEP 8, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 8, 2026 · 3 SOURCES
Viral Misinformation
No, Trump Didn't Die on September 3. A Fake Pop Base Screenshot Did the Rounds Instead.
A single X post with a fabricated screenshot claimed Pop Base had announced Trump's death at 80. It hadn't — and the panic it set off traces back to a cryptic White House scheduling post, not any real news.
FILED SEP 8, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 8, 2026 · 4 SOURCES
Viral Misinformation
Iran's '11 City Target List': How Recycled Nuclear Maps Became a Viral War Hoax
Viral posts claimed Iran released a target list of 11 US cities. The graphics were recycled nuclear vulnerability maps. Iran's missiles max out at roughly 1,200 miles (2,000 km) — the US mainland is about 10,000 km away. Debunked by PolitiFact and Poynter.
FILED SEP 7, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 7, 2026 · 27 SOURCES
International
Who Bombed the Iranian School? Experts Say America — Trump Says Iran
Independent munitions experts and Bellingcat identified a US Tomahawk missile at the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, Iran, where a strike on February 28, 2026 killed well over 150 people, most of them schoolgirls. Trump said Iran bombed its own school. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Pentagon's own preliminary investigation say otherwise.
FILED SEP 7, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 7, 2026 · 34 SOURCES
International
Internet Research Agency: Russia's Troll Farm That Reached 126 Million Americans
The IRA ran its US operation on a monthly budget exceeding $1.25 million by September 2016, organized into graphics, data-analysis, IT, and finance departments — and Facebook later estimated its content reached roughly 126 million Americans.
FILED SEP 7, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 7, 2026 · 8 SOURCES
Viral Misinformation
Trump Didn't Rename New Mexico. He Just Reposted the Hoax That Said He Did.
A parody account's fake executive order claiming Trump renamed New Mexico to "New America" went viral on September 1. Five days later, the president posted the map himself — without ever signing anything.
FILED SEP 7, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 7, 2026 · 4 SOURCES
Politics & Policy
Inflation 'Historical Cap' Claims: Separating Fact from Fiction
Comprehensive fact-check of claims that inflation reached historically unprecedented levels, checked against BLS, Federal Reserve, and fact-checker records.
FILED SEP 6, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 6, 2026 · 7 SOURCES
International
India-Pakistan Karachi Invasion Claim: War Misinformation During Crisis
Videos and TV broadcasts during the May 2025 India-Pakistan crisis falsely claimed Indian forces had struck and captured Karachi, with some outlets calling it a full invasion.
FILED SEP 6, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 6, 2026 · 7 SOURCES
International
10 Indian Leaders Deepfaked: Inside Pakistan's AI Disinformation Blitz
A pro-Pakistan X account fabricated AI videos of PM Modi, India's Army Chief, and eight other officials to frame India as an Israeli ally in the Iran war. Forensic analysis of the @InsiderWB deepfake campaign targeting Indian leaders in March 2026.
FILED SEP 6, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 6, 2026 · 28 SOURCES
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Investigative reports — not user-submitted fact-checks.