AAP FactCheck Articles

There's no visible difference between bananas ripened chemically or naturally

The Australian Banana Growers’ Council (ABGC), the national peak industry body for Australia’s commercial banana growers, told AAP FactCheck “the chemical ripening process is essentially the same as the natural ripening process, just in a more controlled environment” and that both were triggered by the same hormone, ethylene gas.

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Ned Kelly post depicts German communist philosopher Friedrich Engels

According to the National Museum of Australia (NMA) Ned Kelly was a bushranger who was born around 1855 the eldest son of eight children to Irish parents. His father John was a convict who’d been transported to Australia for stealing pigs and his mother Ellen was a migrant.

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Australian taxpayers don't fund children's terrorism or jihad lessons

Revive Australia’s post contains a link to a story with the same headline from a website called The Politics Online, which publishes news-style posts, many of which are critical of Islam.

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Innisfail in north Queensland is not an “agent orange town”

AAP FactCheck found the photo which accompanies the post was taken in Vietnam in 1962, not in Innisfail, Northern Queensland in 1966. It shows a United States Air Force Fairchild UC-123B Provider transport aircraft spraying defoliant in South Vietnam in 1962 during Operation Ranch Hand. The image was sourced to a 1984 book by Dana Bell titled, “Air War over Vietnam”, Volume IV.

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Bulldog urinating on Yassmin Abdel-Magied mural is fake

AAP FactCheck found the image posted by The Voice of Australia was a doctored version of Mr Rudd’s original mural.

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Are there 462,000 unemployed people in Australia?

“There’s 462,000 people that are unemployed in Australia and a lot more that are underemployed and looking for more work.” One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson. July 22, 2019

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Do 45 per cent of year six students not know where bananas, cheese and bread come from?

"Seventy-five per cent of grade six students believed cotton socks came from an animal and 45 per cent believed bananas, bread and cheese didn’t come from farming.” Scott Morrison, Prime Minister. July 18, 2019.

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NZ PM Jacinda Ardern never said Jews should “be wiped off the map”

AAP FactCheck found no reference to any comment about hating Jews or advocating for their annihilation made by Prime Minister Ardern and found no evidence the New Zealand leader had ever said the quoted phrase posted on Facebook.

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Swiss football brawl footage used to create fake UK Muslim riot video

The video was posted by Daniel Nalliah who is listed as the founder and national president of the Rise Up Australia Party which states on its site that Mr Nalliah is a “major voice against Multiculturalism and the Islamisation of the West”.

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Feeding sugar water to bees will kill them

AAP FactCheck found Sir David Attenborough does not have any verified social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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Post falsely claims youths arrested for just stealing chips

AAP FactCheck contacted Victoria Police, which confirmed police were called to Russell Street in Melbourne on May 31, 2019 around 10pm.

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No proof quote was made by Martin Luther King Jr

The quote has been shared widely on social media, including by Academy award-winning Australian actress Nicole Kidman, whose Facebook page has over 10.5 million likes. She shared the same quote to mark Martin Luther King Day in January, 2019. That post received over 4,200 reactions and was shared over 430 times.

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Dingo and shark on the beach with mating snakes pic is fake

AAP FactCheck examined the image and found it dated back to at least October 16, 2011 where it appeared on the photo sharing site Imgur. The source of the Imgur post links it to the same photo uploaded on Reddit by user u/BeefPieSoup on the same day.

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Venomous snake diagram claims are false

Pupils and pits on snakes both serve practical purposes unrelated to whether or not a snake is venomous. Elliptical pupils tend to be a trait of nocturnal snakes, while snakes active during the day have round pupils, according to an article on identifying venomous snakes published by McGill University in Canada.

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Do a quarter of Tasmanians - or 120,000 people - live below the poverty line?

"120,000 Tasmanians - a quarter of our population - live below the poverty line." Anna Reynolds, Lord Mayor of Hobart, and Council of Capital City Lord Mayors Chair. July 8, 2019.

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ATM “tip” to protect your PIN is false

The same ATM tip has been posted on social media since at least November 2018 and been shared in various forms in the US, Canada, Africa, Asia and more recently Australia. Here’s three examples from the Philippines, South Africa and India.

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"Cool" image of film and rock trio is fake

AAP FactCheck found the photo comprises of three separate images of the three stars on their own which have been photo-shopped together. Two of the images were taken five years apart.

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George Orwell's 1984 book quote is false

AAP FactCheck found the word “revolt” appeared six times in the novel 1984, and the quote in the Facebook post, does not appear in this exact or similar form.

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Has the increase in the number of homeless people been lower than population growth?

“Over the census period numbers [of homeless people] have increased slightly, but the point that I was making is the increase is lower than population growth.” Assistant Minister for Community Housing and Homelessness Luke Howarth. July 9, 2019.

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Leadership quote credited to former US president John Quincy Adams is false

US President Donald Trump used the same quote in a April 16, 2015 tweet which attracted 346 retweets and 361 likes. It was also used by his daughter Ivanka Trump in her 2017 book, Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success.

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