Facts Matter: Breakdancer isn't 'Game of Thrones' actress
As the HBO television series "Game of Thrones" moves through its eighth and final season, the Internet is filled with information about the show.
But a video posted earlier this month purporting to show actress Bella Ramsey breakdancing actually shows another performer, according to Snopes.com.
Users on social media sharing the video claimed the English actress, who plays Lady Lyanna Mormont on the show, was showing off intense dance moves. The posts included comments such as, "Bella Ramsey aka Lady Mormont breaking it down. This is what the afterlife looks like," "There's nothing Lyanna Mormont can't do," and "Watch out for the quiet ones."
The video has racked up more than 175,000 views, Snopes said.
The footage actually shows dancer Liza Petrikova, who originally posted the video on her Instagram page in February, Snopes said. Petrikova dances with a group named UnReal Crew and she won a competition in April.
Ramsey took to Twitter to respond to the incorrectly labeled video, joking, "I wish that was me but it is in fact my long-lost twin."
Not sign of the times
In April, The Washington Post declared President Donald Trump had topped 10,000 false or misleading claims while serving just over two years of his term.
However, an image making the rounds on Facebook showing a California middle school congratulating the president on the milestone is false, according to FactCheck.org.
The photo of a Roosevelt Middle School sign carrying the message, "Congratulations to President Donald Trump on reaching his 10,000th lie" had been doctored to add the text, according to FactCheck.org.
Cliff Hong, principal at the Oakland, California, school, told FactCheck.org the institution never displayed the message.
"We haven't even used that sign in, like, two years," he said.
Hong told FactCheck.org there have been other online photos of the sign with different messages over the past few years.
The image with the Trump message was shared 1,400 times in the first four hours it was posted.
"As a district, we don't put political messages on our signs," John Sasaki, spokesman for the Oakland United School District, told FactCheck.org.
Committee chair didn't seal Obama records
Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, has subpoenaed records on President Donald Trump's finances.
Cummings did not introduce a bill to keep President Barack Obama's records sealed, as suggested by recent Facebook posts, according to The Associated Press.
The false social media claim includes a photo of Obama awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to civil rights activist and Georgia Rep. John Lewis, suggesting Lewis is Cummings, AP said.
In fact, in 2014 Cummings introduced a bill to improve public access to presidential records, which was signed into law by Obama that year, AP said. The Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014 give presidents 60 days to review records before the documents are made public in the National Archives. The legislation also includes electronic records and clarifies use of private email by federal officials.
Trump and his businesses have filed a federal lawsuit to block the subpoena issued by the House committee, AP said.
Carter didn't say that
Memes on social media commonly display a photo of a famous person along with a quote attributed to that person. Although it's sometimes easy to spot the fakes, such as Abraham Lincoln speaking about the internet or Albert Einstein's opinion of Facebook, others seem genuine.
An image recently making the rounds on social media with a head shot of Jimmy Carter and a quote about Christianity and human rights, issues the 39th president was passionate about, seemingly could have been said by him, according to PolitiFact.com.
But it's fake.
The quote attributed to Carter states, "If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don't."
The words actually come from comedian John Fugelsang and were part of a segment called "Revoltingly Fake Christian of the Week," which aired on TV on May 29, 2013, PolitiFact said. The comedian was taking shots at Republican Rep. Stephen Fincher from Tennessee.
The comment was almost immediately misattributed to Carter and has continuously circulated on Facebook.
According to PolitiFact, Fugelsang tried to set the record straight a few months later, tweeting, "This quote was widely attributed to Jimmy Carter. I apologize to him for it."
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.