GSAN: ‘It’s corn!’ | Hurricane rumors | Leaving conspiracy theories

No, an elephant seal didn’t wander the streets after Hurricane Ian

NO: This video was not captured in Florida during Hurricane Ian in September 2022. YES: This is a genuine video of an elephant seal roaming the streets after being stranded in the seaside town of Puerto Cisnes, Chile, in 2020.

NewsLit takeaway: Miscaptioned content is frequently shared in the wake of natural disasters. Social media users are inundated with devastating images and videos, and purveyors of misinformation can easily mislabel old content and share it as new. This misleading video plays into a common misinformation practice of sharing miscaptioned images of animals turning up in unlikely places during major weather events. When a video or photo goes viral that supposedly shows an animal in an unusual place, it can be debunked by double-checking the source, searching for related news items or doing a reverse image search.

Impostor astronaut uses green screen to lie about NASA using green screen

NO: The woman in this video is not NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg. YES: This video was created for a flat Earth YouTube channel to demonstrate how someone could fake a weightless environment with a green screen. YES: Creators filmed the footage on Earth, then used a green screen to add a still image from the International Space Station, along with various floating objects.

NewsLit takeaway: Instilling doubt can sometimes spread conspiracy theories more effectively than providing any evidence for them. This video, for example, was not created to prove that NASA uses green screens to lie about space travel; instead, it aims to show how NASA could lie about space travel if it wanted to. USA Today fact-checkers identified the woman in the video as a flat Earth believer acting in a skit, which later went viral. The flat Earth conspiracy theory isn’t as much about proving the Earth is flat as it is to sow doubt about scientific knowledge. There still are a surprising number of people who embrace flat Earth beliefs.

Altered video of Trump, Sinema goes viral

NO: This is not an authentic video of Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and former President Donald Trump. YES: This is a digitally altered video based on footage of Trump with a supporter from a 2015 campaign rally and a clip of Sinema’s acceptance speech from November 2018. YES: This video was created by a content creator known for fabricated hoax photos and videos.

NewsLit takeaway: There are several ways to tell the video is a fake. Sinema’s head doesn’t appear to be the right size for her body. Her hair disappears behind her shoulders and her shirt and neck are artificially smooth.

The video racked up tens of thousands of views. On social media, some users acknowledged the video was fake but argued it might as well be true because it captured something that they envision could happen. This kind of rationalization for misinformation is a red flag.