UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing Sparks Wild Claims
Plus: Parody RFK Jr. Account Fools Liberals and Conservatives; No, Trudeau Did Not Post an AI Image of Trump Plummeting Off a Cliff
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Today:
From a fake Burger King post to a nonexistent Pelosi connection, UnitedHealthcare CEO murder spurs false claims
Parody RFK Jr. X account announces Diet Coke ban; liberals and conservatives run with it
Ads for GoDaddy, 1-800 Flowers, UGG, and Department of Veterans Affairs fund false vaccine “shedding” claim
Justin Trudeau did not post an AI-generated image of Trump falling off a cliff
And More …
Today’s newsletter was edited by Eric Effron and Sofia Rubinson.
1. False Claims Multiply After UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting
New Yorkers rejoicing in the street after the shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO? A scheduled YouTube video planted by the suspect? A conspiracy to stop the victim from testifying against Nancy Pelosi for insider trading? These are just some of the bogus claims spreading after the Dec. 4, 2024, murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
What happened: NewsGuard identified seven such false claims that gained traction online in the last week, with a spike following the arrest of the suspected gunman, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.
A closer look: The claims spread through manipulated images, misleading videos, and fake social media profiles. Among them:
Claim: A video (below) shows New Yorkers celebrating Thompson’s death while singing along to Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten,” with lyrics that include: “I break tradition, sometimes my tries are outside the lines. We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way.”
Actually: The video (above) depicts a crowd outside a Nov. 20, 2024, Bedingfield concert at Webster Hall in New York City — two weeks before Thompson’s killing.
Claim: Mangione created a YouTube video (below) that stated, “All is scheduled, be patient. Bye for now,” which was scheduled to be released after his arrest and went live as planned.
Actually: YouTube stated that the video (above) was uploaded to an imposter account. The account’s name was changed to Mangione’s after his arrest, and the video was uploaded while he was in police custody.
Claim: A video (below) shows Thompson admitting that he worked with Nancy Pelosi.
Actually: The video (above) shows a different Brian Thompson — a tech entrepreneur who founded energy management company Stem — speaking at a workshop in 2012. He said on X, “I want to clarify that I’m not the late Brian Thompson.” However, that post gained fewer than 100 views two days after it was published, while just one viral post advancing this claim, published by conservative commentator Matt Wallace that said the video shows UnitedHealthcare’s late CEO, received nearly 600,000 views.
Claim: After Mangione’s arrest at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, where he was recognized by an employee, Burger King posted on X, “We don’t snitch.”
A doctored post stating “We don’t snitch” appears to be published by Burger King’s official X account. (Screenshot via NewsGuard) Actually: A screenshot of the post that spread online is fabricated. Burger King’s official X account issued no such post.
Tricks of our trade: When major news breaks, false claims inevitably follow. Here are some tips that helped us quickly identify and debunk these falsehoods.
Check the original source: Two false claims related to the shooting spread through doctored social media posts. A quick check of the official account of a brand or public figure is a simple way to verify a post’s authenticity.
Reverse image searching: Using free services like Google, anyone can trace video clips, such as the one of New Yorkers singing “Unwritten” or the video of a man claiming to work with Nancy Pelosi, back to their original context.
Practice mindful skepticism: If a claim on social media has not been reported by credible sources, take a breath and count to 10. Anonymous social media profiles that focus on conspiracy theories often do not verify the credibility of the posts they publish and amplify.
Sam Howard, Nicole Dirks, and Sarah Komar contributed reporting.
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2. RFK Jr. Parody Account Dupes Left and the Right with Fake Diet Coke Ban
What happened: An RFK Jr. parody account is fooling liberal and conservative X users with a fake claim that Donald Trump’s pick for Health Secretary plans to ban Diet Coke.
A closer look: The claim originated on the X account @RFKHealthSec, whose bio states, “Official Robert F. Kennedy Jr Health Secretary Parody Account.” The account is verified with a blue checkmark, now a perk sold to X Premium subscribers, although the mark previously signaled that a person’s identity had been verified before Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform.
On Dec. 4, the parody account posted: “BREAKING: Effective January 20th, I will be BANNING all consumption of Diet Coke in the United States. It’s time to Make America Healthy Again. #MAHA Who’s with me?” The post received 9.5 million views.
While the post was flagged the next day with a community note stating it was satire, some liberal X users started sharing the post without noting its satirical pedigree.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell from Michigan reposted @RFKJrHealthSec’s post with a graphic that said, “Come and take it” and an image of a Diet Coke can. The post, which did not acknowledge the claim was a parody, gained 437,700 views. (Dingell’s communication director Michaela Johnson told NewsGuard in an email, “Rep. Dingell and our team were aware the account was a parody, which is why we shared a joke in response.”)
Anonymous liberal account @rigginsslim shared the parody post alongside the text, “i will make January 6 look like an ice cream social,” implying that riots could break out if Kennedy bans Diet Coke. The post received 7.4 million views.
Some X users applauded the supposed decision to ban Diet Coke, which contains the artificial sweetener aspartame.
“Aspartame is poison. Thank you!” pro-Trump account @ThisLadyloves7 said in a reply.
“All sodas should be removed as well as artificial juices and energy drinks. They are not healthy,” pro-Trump X user @sheila17_xo said in another reply.
Actually: As noted above, the account is satirical. Similar accounts have amassed large followings on X, including parody accounts for X’s owner Elon Musk, President-elect Donald Trump, and his daughter Ivanka Trump.
Context: RFK Jr., who is leading a campaign to “Make America Healthy Again,” is a critic of ultra processed foods, food dyes, sugary drinks, and sugar substitutes.
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
3. Brand Victims of the Week: Ads for GoDaddy, 1-800 Flowers, UGG, the V.A. Department, and Others Fund False Claim that Vaccine Shedding Affects Menstrual Cycles
In this Reality Check feature, NewsGuard identifies global brands that support the spread of misinformation by unintentionally funneling programmatic advertising dollars to sites that repeatedly peddle false claims. Unless advertisers use inclusion or exclusion lists to place their programmatic ads, these ads will appear on websites regardless of their trustworthiness.
This week: A NewsGuard analyst based in the U.S. was shown programmatic ads for GoDaddy, 1-800 Flowers, UGG, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Adobe, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on an article published by SlayNews.com (Trust Score: 0/100). Slay News is an anonymously run conservative news website that has repeatedly advanced false claims about health. The Dec. 10, 2024, article claimed that a December 2024 study proves COVID-19 vaccine “shedding” causes menstrual cycle changes in unvaccinated women. In fact, it is biologically impossible for unvaccinated women’s menstrual cycles to be affected by being around a person who received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to health experts. The study cited to back the false narrative was based solely on responses to an anti-vaccine organization’s online survey. (See NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprint for this claim here.)
Representatives for GoDaddy, 1-800 Flowers, UGG, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Adobe, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital did not immediately respond to NewsGuard’s emailed requests for comment.
(Disclosure: NewsGuard is among the companies that license data that would help advertisers only advertise on reliable, brand suitable news sites.)
If you see something, say something
If you see or hear something that you think may be provably false, please alert NewsGuard via realitycheck@newsguardtech.com and we'll do our best to get to the bottom of it. Note: Tips should not include content that you simply disagree with, however strongly.
4. No, Justin Trudeau Did Not Share an AI Image of Trump Falling Off a Cliff
By Sarah Komar and Sofia Rubinson
What happened: Anti-Trump social media users are falsely claiming that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted an AI-generated image of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plummeting off a cliff, supposedly in response to an AI image shared by Trump one week earlier.
Context: On Dec. 3, four days after Trump and Trudeau met at Mar-a-Lago and Trump joked that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state amid a disagreement over tariffs, Trump posted an AI image of himself next to a Canadian flag overlooking mountains, alongside the text “Oh Canada!” Here’s that post:
A closer look: On Dec. 4, liberal social media users began spreading a supposed screenshot of an X post by Trudeau with the same caption, “Oh Canada!” but instead depicting flag-waving Canadians cheering while Trump plunges off a cliff.
X user @YourAnonNews, an account associated with the international hacking collective Anonymous, which opposes Trump, shared the fake screenshot with the caption, “Canada be like ‘Get tha f*** outta here eh?” The post received 406,000 views and 13,000 likes.
Threads user @robertellingsworth shared the fake screenshot with the caption, “We have a rebuttal,” garnering 550 likes and 70 reposts.
Actually: Trudeau did not post this AI image on his X account.
A NewsGuard review of Trudeau’s social media accounts found no evidence that Trudeau ever posted such an image.
While the image contains a grey checkmark that X designates to government officials, the engagement symbols at the bottom of the post are not in the proper format of a legitimate X post.
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