Don't Donate to Ukraine Through This Facebook Crypto Scam
On March 22, 2022, we began investigating a crypto scam on a Facebook page that posed as Crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange company, and asked for donations for Ukraine. The Facebook page was named Crypto.com/Nft. However, the company named Crypto.com had nothing to do with it. crypto scam Facebook Crypto.com Ukraine Crypto.com/Nft We notified Meta by email and were told by a company spokesperson that the page would soon be coming down. Meta is Facebook's parent company. Meta The person or people managing the page bought paid advertising on Facebook in order to run the scam. The ad was approved, and was displayed for at least three days. scam The ad The page was created on March 18, and the ad began running the next day. We noted that the same ad was still active as of March 22.  The "Ad Library" for the crypto scam Facebook page showed that it had been active for at least three days.  By March 22, the page had racked up 228 likes and 5,368 followers. The post that was created for the Facebook ad had also been liked nearly 1,000 times. The ad from the Crypto.com/Nft Facebook page asked for donations for Ukraine and provided a specific wallet address. It appeared like this: Ukraine  The scammers pretended to be with Crypto.com in order to execute their plan.  It read as follows: Crypto.com would like to support Ukraine with 100k USDT together with its community!Join us! Every amount you donate in Ethereum we top up to 100k USDT. Donate ETH only to0x9adBb30BDb95eD70A6C795e6078a118E6e7e1854 We will exchange it to USDT while transferring funds to Ukraine.#ukraine #ETHEREUM Once again, this is a scam. The page was created four days before we filed this report. Also, it claimed to be affiliated with Crypto.com, even though it was not. Both of these were red flags. The requested amount of "100k USDT" in the ad is equivalent to about $100,000. According to Blockchain.com, as of March 22, 0x9adBb30BDb95eD70A6C795e6078a118E6e7e1854, the wallet address mentioned in the ad, had received around $32,279.94 in funds since April 2021. It's unclear how much of those funds were brought in based on other scams that had nothing to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February. equivalent According to Blockchain.com Russia's invasion of Ukraine In previous reporting, we exposed four other crypto scams, all of which were hosted by Facebook or Instagram. We also have seen a handful of others pop up as paid ads. four other crypto scams Instagram We alerted Crypto.com about the scam Facebook page. A company spokesperson said that the address used by the scammers was not a Crypto.com wallet address and that no Crypto.com account holders had transferred funds to it. To make donations to legitimate organizations to help the people in Ukraine, we recommend visiting our previous article that documented four good causes that are accepting funds. Ukraine article Curious about how Snopes' writers verify information and craft their stories for public consumption? We've collected some posts that help explain how we do what we do. Happy reading and let us know what else you might be interested in knowing. help explain let us know Shortly after this story was published on March 22, 2022, a Facebook company spokesperson confirmed to us by email that the page would soon be coming down.
In May 2022, a website purporting to be a local news site for the western portion of Illinois' Cook County, the state's most populous county that covers the Chicago metro, published an article falsely claiming that Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF) officials were set to implement a "race-based grading system." The article alleged that administrators would make it mandatory for "teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students." published an article  The website was called "West Cook News," and the article featured a cropped version of OPRF Administrator Laurie Fiorenza's Twitter profile photo. The contents of the article stemmed from a presentation that she gave during a recent school board meeting (a video of it posted on May 26 and is displayed below). In the presentation, she discussed research around grading students more fairly, known as "equitable grading," and shared findings with school board members for their consideration. Neither she nor any other member of the board announced policy changes that would require teachers to change how they grade students, much less make it mandatory for them to assess students based on their race or ethnicity. For these reasons, we're marking this claim  Twitter profile photo The school said in a statement published to its website: said in a statement The article contains a variety of misleading and inaccurate statements. The articles mischaracterization of the Board meeting is unfortunate and has caused unnecessary confusion [...] At no time were any statements made recommending that OPRF implement a race-based grading approach. At the above-mentioned school board meeting, Fiorenza gave a brief presentation about the progress of a board committee that researches professional development strategies for teachers, called the Transformative Education Leadership Team (TELT). Fiorenza noted that during the school year, teachers had read several books about "equitable grading," or strategies to assess students on a non-biased basis. That said, Fiorenza did not say that teachers were required to implement equitable grading (which is not "race-based grading"). Here's a video of the meeting:  We reached out to Karin Sullivan, the executive director of communications at OPRF, who told us that "there are no changes being proposed. This was a report on the committees research of best practices." The rumor that OPRF was implementing a race-based grading system appeared to largely stem from a misunderstanding of the term "equitable grading." Ralph Matire, secretary of the OPRF School Board, said during the meeting: OPRF School OK, equitable grading. People are going to hear that, and they are not going to understand that. So I want to be very clear that equitable grading practice [is] the objective assessment of academic mastery. It is not a dumbing down. It is not making concessions for this, that, or the third thing. It's finding a way to be objective about determining whether a student has mastered the academic content, because too often, subjective evaluation can be off and that's where inequity comes in. So it's getting to an objective measurement of student mastery of academic content. The community needs to hear that. It's an important thing. Margaret Sullivan, an associate director at EAB, a consulting firm specializing in education institutions, wrote about equitable grading in November 2021: wrote Course failure rates more than doubled during the pandemic, reducing student confidence in school and their chances of pursuing postsecondary education. But lack of learning isnt the only driver of course failures. Up to 40% of traditional student grades include non-academic criteria that do not reflect student learning gains  including participation and on-time homework submission. As a result, traditional grading may inadvertently penalize underprivileged students who struggle to meet non-academic expectations. One of the goals of equable grading is to focus on whether students understand course material, no matter their timeline for doing so, as opposed to testing them for points on specific dates. For example, supporters say, to achieve more equitable grades, teachers should drop zeroes on assignments from grade books when students demonstrate that they know the material from those assignments. During the presentation, Matire talked about how the latter change could give teachers a better assessment of a student's performance, saying: So, a kid scores zero points on a quiz, then three weeks later demonstrates complete mastery of the material that was in that quiz, why should that zero points hold down that kid's grade when the kid has demonstrated mastery of the academic content? That's what moving to an equitable grading system is. It's understanding that students grow at different paces. And it's teachers interacting with and assessing their students in a manner that allows them to objectively determine that the student has inf act mastered the content. Karin Sullivan told us that there had been "no school-wide recommendation or implementation" of equitable grading at OPRF, and that this presentation was just a "discussion of research-based best practices." If a teacher does implement equitable grading into their instruction plan, Sullivan said, "any teachers using such practices would have to use them across the board for all students, regardless of race." West Cook News' article carried the sensational and false title "OPRF to implement race-based grading system in 2022-23 school year." As noted above, the school simply was not implementing a new grading system, and the grading strategies that officials discussed at a recent school board meeting (equitable grading) had nothing to do with students' race or ethnicity. Despite (or perhaps because of) the inaccuracy of this headline, screenshots of West Cook News' article spread widely on social media. When Libs of Tiktok, a social media account that has gained a massive following thanks to its ability to stir up conservative outrage with claims that are often misleading, false, or stripped of context (no, litter boxes haven't been installed at schools because kids "identify" as cats), spread this rumor, they added screenshots from the presentation that highlighted specific passages: Libs of Tiktok litter boxes haven't been installed at schools   Neither of these highlighted passages stated that OPRF officials were implementing a race-based grading system. What these passages refer to, again, is equitable grading, or an attempt to remove bias from the classroom so that teachers can grade students purely on their mastery of a given subject.  The school explained in their statement:  explained in their statement As part of the Board of Educations strategic plan, the OPRFHS Grading and Assessment Committee was formed to examine national research on objective, unbiased practices for determining whether students have mastered academic content. Again, the presentation slides do not state that teachers at OPRF will implement a race-based grading system. Rather, the slides note that teachers had read books about how take non-academic factors (such as attendance) out of the equation could give them a more objective view of a student's mastery of a subject.  West Cook News is part of a so-called "pink slime news" network, a network of websites purporting to be local news outlets (despite having few or no local reporters) that publish politically biased content. The website is run by Local Government Information Services (LGIS), which is part of the Metric Media Foundation, a pink slime network that operates more than 1,200 "local news" outlets. A 2019 investigation by the New York Times found that these networks received "at least $1.7 million from Republican political campaigns and conservative groups." "pink slime news" network pink slime network that operates more than 1,200 "local news" outlets 2019 investigation by the New York Times A disclaimer on the site about its funding read: "Funding for this news site is provided, in part, by advocacy groups who share our beliefs in limited government." While West Cook News presented itself as a local news outlet covering the suburban area west of Chicago, the majority of the stories published by this website were written with an algorithm, according to co-founder Brian Timpone. The Columbia Journalism Review reported in 2018: Columbia Journalism Review reported Most of the stories published on LGIS news sites are written by algorithm, co-founder Brian Timpone says in an interview with CJR, using software that analyzes data (school test scores, for instance) and splices it by region to deliver to local publications around the state. [...] When stories are written, their authors are usually freelancers, many of whom report their stories from well beyond the Illinois state line. The story about "race-based grading" carried no author byline. Instead, the article stated it came from the "LGIS News Service." The Times reported that this network also publishes "pay-for-play" content. Or, in other words, clients can pay to have stories written and published on this network of sites. While reputable news websites would either label this type of content as "paid content" (or, more likely, simply avoid it altogether), these paid advertisements were published by the Metric Media Foundation as if they were regular news stories. The New York Times reported: New York Times reported Internal documents show how much influence the clients have. "The clients pay us to produce a certain amount of copy each day for their websites," said one tool kit for new writers. "In some cases, the clients will provide their own copy." No.  This rumor can be traced back to an article published on a pink slime news network in May 2022 that mischaracterized a presentation slide about equitable grading. School officials did not say they were preparing to implement any changes to their grading system, much less adjustments that would force teachers to account for a student's race or ethnicity. Furthermore, any potential future changes to how students are graded would apply to all students, not just students of a specific race.  OPRF said in a statement: "OPRFHS does not, nor has it ever had a plan to, grade any students differently based on race." OPRF said in a statement We reached out to West Cook News with questions about the article, but did not receive a reply by publication time. [From the Snopes archives: Did Oregon Officials Say Showing Work in Math Class Is White Supremacism?] Did Oregon Officials Say Showing Work in Math Class Is White Supremacism Advocacy Groups and Metric Media Collaborate on Local Community News. Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/community-newsmaker-metric-media-local-news.php/. Accessed 1 June 2022. Alba, Davey, and Jack Nicas. As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place. The New York Times, 18 Oct. 2020. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/technology/timpone-local-news-metric-media.html. Editor, Henry Scott |. for and Publisher. Exploiting the Local News Desert: Are Political and Foreign Interests Profiting from the Locals Loss? Editor and Publisher, https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/exploiting-the-local-news-desert,207894. Accessed 1 June 2022. Follow The Money: Right-Wing Funding Of Pink Slime Websites Tracked In New Study. News, 4 Nov. 2021, https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2021/11/03/follow-the-money-right-wing-funding-of-pink-slime-websites-tracked-in-new-study. Gabbatt, Adam. The Fake News Sites Pushing Republicans Critical Race Theory Scare. The Guardian, 17 Nov. 2021. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/17/fake-news-sites-republicans-critical-race-theory-scare. Hundreds of Pink Slime Local News Outlets Are Distributing Algorithmic Stories and Conservative Talking Points. Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/hundreds-of-pink-slime-local-news-outlets-are-distributing-algorithmic-stories-conservative-talking-points.php/. Accessed 1 June 2022. Press, Associated. Republican Retracts False Claim Schools Placing Litter Boxes for Furry Students. The Guardian, 29 Mar. 2022. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/29/nebraska-lawmaker-litter-boxes-claim-debunked. Romain, Michael. Conservative Site Seeking to Fill News Void Invites Suspicion. Oak Park, 27 Apr. 2021, https://www.oakpark.com/2021/04/27/conservative-site-seeking-to-fill-news-void-invites-suspicion/. D97 Updates Board on Racial Equity Analysis Tool. Oak Park, 20 May 2020, https://www.oakpark.com/2020/05/20/d97-updates-board-on-racial-equity-analysis-tool/. Statement Regarding Grading Practices. https://www.oprfhs.org/news/1742090/statement-regarding-grading-practices. Accessed 1 June 2022. The Metric Media Network Runs More than 1,200 Local News Sites. Here Are Some of the Non-Profits Funding Them. Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/metric-media-lobbyists-funding.php/. Accessed 1 June 2022. Tugade, F. Amanda. Building out Equity Projects Goal of OPRFs Equity Chief. Oak Park, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.oakpark.com/2022/02/01/building-out-equity-projects-goal-of-oprfs-equity-chief/. Why Equitable Grading Policies Matter. 15 Nov. 2021, https://eab.com/insights/expert-insight/district-leadership/why-equitable-grading-policies-matter/. Claim:  E-mail claims a Mexican woman attempted to abduct a tot from a store in Tupelo, Mississippi. Status:  False. Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] Ok this is freaky but it really happened at the mall in Tupelo. Everyone please beware this Holiday Season. A couple of weeks ago a lady with two kids was shopping at JCPennys in the mall here at Tupelo.  One of her sons was pretty small and he was in a stroller buckled in and the other one was older and he was walking beside her. A mexican woman came by and told the lady how cute her little baby was...well the lady told her "Thank You" and went on her way. A couple of minutes later the mexican woman approched the lady again telling her how cute her little baby boy was. The lady again replied with thank you. As the lady turned her back to look at a piece of clothing the oldest son started screaming. The lady turned around to find that the mexican lady had unbuckled the baby and grabbed him out of the stroller and took off with him.  The lady ran after them and caught the mexican woman as the was getting out the door with her son. The only way that she caught her was the mexican woman had long hair and she pulled it and knocked her down. The lady held her in her custody until the authorities arrived. The lady  was shocked when the authorities asked her if she wanted to press charges. The lady replied back with heck yeah this is my son your talking about. Come to find out the mexican lady was here illegally. They are coming here to steal our kids and carry them across the border to sell to the black market... scary I know....but I had to pass on. Now you do the same.. Thanks and have a Great Day  This really happened to a relative of a girl that goes to church with me. They have the lady in custody that tried to take the baby. She was hispanic and finally admitted that she was taking the baby across the border to sell it. This was last Wednesday night, Nov. 15 at the JC Penneys at Barnes Crossing. They did not catch anyone that was accompanying the lady andwe don't know if she gave up any names. So there could still be predators out there. Warn everyone you know with small children. Very scary... Last night as our family was out eating out at a local resturant , one of my aunts shared with us a very disturbing event that happened this past Wednesday night at JC Penny. A lady was shopping with her 2 small children  one a baby in a stroller and the other a toddler that was just old enough to talk. The lady had her children both right next to her as she was looking at clothes and the toddler said "Mama that lady just got my sister". This mother started chasing this Hispanic lady and finally caught her by reaching out and grabbing her hair from behind. She then started screaming this woman has my baby. Security came and took care of the horrible situation and told the Mom - we can almost bet you the lady had a car waiting outside with a driver and ready to take off and sell your baby on the black market in Mexico. This mother's grateful thought was Thank Goodness my toddler could talk and tell me - because she never thought this could happen since her children were right next to her within arms reach. I am sure with the Holiday Season approaching us all, the distractions as we shop will be more - but I hope this will help us all to stay a little more alert while out and about doing our shopping. And better Yet lets all each day Ask for the Lord to Guide and protect us and our families! Origins:  In November 2006, these accounts describing a foiled child abduction at a store in Tupelo, Mississippi, began arriving in our e-mail. Akin to other Internet-circulated tales about attempted childnappings at large stores (such as the venerable canard about kids being pulled in store washrooms to be drugged and have their hair dyed by those attempting to make off with them, or the 2006 hoax about a failed child grab at a Blockbuster in North Texas), this one also proved to be a fiction. dyed Blockbuster According  to Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and Tupelo Police Chief Harold Chaffin, the story about a Mexican woman who initially admired a shopper's baby, then grabbed it from the stroller and ran off with it was pure invention. There hadn't been any such incident  no brave mom who seized the would-be abductor by her long hair and held her until police arrived, no baby-stealing illegal immigrant now behind bars awaiting trial, no ring of kidnappers frequenting Tupelo-area stores in search of product for a Mexican black market in American infants. The Mall at Barnes Crossing, a venue where the alleged foiled abduction was said to have taken place, did succeed in tracing the e-mails to their source. Mall manager Jeff Snyder indicated no legal action was contemplated against the rumor's originator, but he noted that this could well be the last time the Mall would be inclined to be so lenient regarding damage done to its reputation. The false story spread from inbox to inbox because it invoked not just the specter of the child-abducting stranger (a frightening enough figure all on its own) but melded into it a bogeyman of the moment, the illegal immigrant from south of the border. While illegal immigration into the U.S. from Mexico has long been a problem, prior to 2006 it was less of a concern to those not living in border states. In 2006, however, the illegal immigration issue was pushed to the center of the political arena, with some of that pushing taking the form of unsubstantiated rumors positioning all those who come into the U.S. on the sly as violent criminals. The fictive Mexican woman of this tale is presented as a kidnapper of small children, and not even one propelled by misguided maternal desire into taking youngsters so she could become their mother, but one motivated purely by avarice, in it for the cash that selling the purloined tots would bring. She is wholly and irredeemably evil and therefore held up as an example of the sort of person a "look the other way" attitude towards illegal immigration has allowed into the country. Her theft is not merely that of social services, it is of defenseless children; the cost of having her here is not merely a small increase in taxes paid by the typical family, but the risk that the next tot she or her compatriots snatch will be yours. Barbara "bogeyman the barricades" Mikkelson Last updated:  15 December 2006    Sources:  Gray, Lloyd.  "Today's Falsehoods Spread Faster, Wider."  Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.  10 December 2006  (p. B4). In July 2016, a image picturing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was circulated with text stating that he had freed everyone imprisoned for marijuana offences and expunged their records, and that he was able to enact such a sweeping reform because Canada (unlike the U.S.) has no "prison for profit" facilities:  However, the claim originated not with a news report of any such reform act, but with an article published by the Global Sun on 3 July 2016: A press conference was held last night by The Liberal Party of Canada, on behalf of newly-elected Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau about future marijuana laws and regulations. 30 minutes into the conference, Trudeau announced the big news that all members of the parliament have agreed to  and that is pardoning all Canadian prisoners who have been convicted of a minor or major offence of marijuana. The Global Sun is a satirical publication that does not publish factual stories: The Global Sun is a satire website, articles/post on the website are all made-up stories and should not be taken seriously. Although Prime Minister Trudeau has not freed all those convicted of marijuana-related offences from prison, real news suggests Canada may be moving toward legalizing the drug in 2017: legalizing Canada's Liberal Party government will introduce a law next spring to legalize recreational marijuana, Health Minister Jane Philpott disclosed last week at the United Nations. She did not detail who would be allowed to grow or distribute cannabis products. Canada has a lot of options here, said RAND Drug Policy Research Center co-director Beau Kilmer. You have to pay attention to what's going to happen with the regulation and the taxes. That could really shape what happens in terms of people coming in from other countries. You have to decide whether you want to allow that. On April 17, 2022, the Anxiety Freedom Today Facebook page shared a post with a quote credited to movie actor Denzel Washington, including the words, "Just because you don't share it on social media doesn't mean you're not up to big things. Live it and stay low-key. Privacy is everything." It was somewhat ironic that the post about the state of social media led many of its users to respond with the words, "So true!" Facebook post quote Denzel Washington  Washington has talked before on the subject of the state of social media. It's also entirely possible that Washington might agree with the sentiment of this quote. However, there's no record he ever said these words. The quote was misattributed, meaning that it originally came from someone else. Washington Washington The quote appeared to have originated in a 2016 tweet from author Idil Ahmed on the @idillionaire Twitter account: tweet  This was not the first time this sort of thought was put into words. However, this was the first record of these exact words that we could find. not the first time It wasn't until 2018, two years after @idillionaire's tweet was created, that Washington's name first appeared with the quote. A fake tweet screenshot began going around that purportedly came from the @Denzel Twitter account. However, that account doesn't exist: Washington   This isn't a real tweet. It was likely made using a fake tweet creator website. Also, it could be debated that if Washington were to join Twitter, he probably wouldn't use this profile picture. And as of April 2022, Washington did not appear to have an official Twitter account. An account named @OfficialDenzel was active on Twitter in the past. However, that account is not verified by the social media platform, and it's unclear if it has any affiliation with the actor. Washington verified After the quote about social media appeared in the fake tweet screenshot with Washington's name and face, it was shared as text and in memes: Washington      From these posts and memes, the quote then spread to websites that collect quotes from famous people. For example, Goodreads.com has a page dedicated to the misattributed quote, even though Washington never said the words. (Over the years, we've found that these kinds of websites that collect quotes aren't reliable sources of information, no matter how high they show up in Google search results.) page Washington Again, there's no record of Washington ever saying, "Just because you don't share it on social media, doesn't mean you're not up to big things. Live it and stay low key. Privacy is everything." However, as we mentioned, he has given his thoughts before about the state of social media. Washington For example, he once talked to CBN News about the subject in this Facebook video from November 2017: video  In the video, Washington said the following about the potentially negative effects of social media: Washington Turn it off. That's what I'd say. It's hard for young people now because [] they're addicted. If you don't think you're addicted, and I'm talking about anyone, from the highest to the lowest. If you don't think you're addicted, then see if you can turn it off for a week. It got quiet in here, didn't it? Didn't it get real quiet? It's a tool, so we should use it. God has blessed us with free will. Now it's free will magnified. Free will on steroids. You're free to go in any direction you want. It will allow you, and it's not the enemy. It's just a reflection of our own free will. And we all want to be liked. But now we want to be liked by 16 million. And now, some of us will do anything to be liked. We used to do anything to be liked, but it was by the person in front of you. Now it's to be liked by 16 million people that you don't know. We have to ask ourselves what is the long-term if not the short-term effect of too much information. The video, which was also reposted elsewhere, resulted in various users replying (again, on social media) about the effects of social media with the words, "So true!" reposted Washington also spoke about the subject in a YouTube video that was posted in 2017: Washington YouTube video  In sum, while it's true that Washington has spoken before about the potential dangers of social media, there's no record he ever said the following quote: "Just because you don't share it on social media doesn't mean you are not up to big things. Live it and stay low key. Privacy is everything." Washington As a parting thought, we also noticed that the quote was being misattributed with Washington's name on Reddit. At the bottom of the page, the very last comment appeared to receive no attention or upvotes. However, it made a strong point through the use of humor: misattributed Washington Reddit   Ahmed, Idil. Twitter, 5 Nov. 2016, https://twitter.com/idillionaire/status/795016449915879424. Anxiety Freedom Today. Facebook, 17 Apr. 2022, https://www.facebook.com/anxietyfreedomtoday/posts/1894667707400613. CyberGhostUltimate. "Just Because You Dont Share It on Social Media, Doesn't Mean You Are Not up to Big Things. Live It and Stay Low-Key. Privacy Is Everything. - Denzel Washington." R/Privacy on Reddit, 4 July 2021, www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/ode5ls/just_because_you_dont_share_it_on_social_media/. Denzel Washington Warns Young People about an Overlooked Danger That Could Be Destroying Them. CBN News, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10159957363410393. deyavelii. Denzel Washington Speaks on Social Media. YouTube, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ZV2DwgG8E. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health, suicide or substance use crisis or emotional distress, reach out 24/7 to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988 or using chat services atsuicidepreventionlifeline.orgto connect to a trained crisis counselor.  suicidepreventionlifeline.org On June 24, 2021,John McAfee, an eccentric security software pioneer, was found dead in his prison cell hours after Spain approved his extradition to the United States to face tax evasion charges. While officials from the Catalan government said in a statement that "everything points to death by suicide," social media users started sharing the hashtag #McAfeedidntkillhimself and pointed to a 2019 tweet in which Mcafee showed a "$WHACKD" tattoo as evidence. found dead in his prison cell    This is a genuine tweet from McAfee. The security software pioneer truly had the "$WHACKD" tattooed on his arm (you can see another image of the tattoo here) and he truly did write "If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd" in a tweet.  tattoo here However, this message from November 2019 was more than a year before McAfee was facing the very real possibility that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. While McAfee's November 2019 tweet may have summed up his mentality at the time, it does not necessarily provide any insight into his state of mind at the time of his death.  November 2019 It should also be noted that McAfee did not get this tattoo solely to signal that he was not suicidal. This tattoo also promoted a cryptocurrency token on the now defunct website McAfeedex.com. McAfee promoted this cryptocurrency token on his site by connecting it to another death, that of Jeffrey Epstein, which many have claimed (with little evidence) was an assassination disguised as a suicide.  cryptocurrency token Jeffrey Epstein McAfee, 75, was arrested in Spain in October 2020 as he was about to board a plane to Turkey. McAfee was wanted in the United States for various tax evasion charges. The BBC reported: BBC reported In October 2020, John McAfee was arrested in Spain when he was about to board a plane to Turkey, and accused of failing to file tax returns for four years, despite earning millions from consulting work, speaking engagements, crypto-currencies and selling the rights to his life story. The US justice department alleged that McAfee evaded tax liability by having his income paid into bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the names of nominees. He was also accused of concealing assets, including a yacht and real estate property, also in other people's names. McAfee was being held in a jail near Barcelona while he awaited extradition. On June 24, 2021, a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States where he would face charges. If convicted, McAfee could have been sentenced to as much as 30 years in prison.  could have been sentenced Hours after McAfee's extradition was approved, however, the software pioneer was found dead in his prison cell. The Justice Department for the government of Catalonia said that an autopsy would be conducted before officially determining a cause of death. At the moment, however, the Spanish government says that "everything points to death by suicide." autopsy McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, also told Reuters that McAfee died by suicide.  Reuters British-born U.S. technology entrepreneur John McAfee died on Wednesday by suicide in a Barcelona prison after the Spanish high court authorized his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges, his lawyer told Reuters. McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the anti-virus software pioneer died by hanging as his nine months in prison brought him to despair. Among the many vexing problems with which the world continues to grapple is the issue of child marriage, a matter that predominantly affects girls in less developed countries. As the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) notes, 20 percent of girls worldwide are married before reaching the age of 18, and in some parts of the globe the rate is twice as high: UNFPA Child marriage denies girls the right to choose whom and when to marry -- one of lifes most important decisions. Choosing one's partner is a major decision, one that should be made freely and without fear or coercion. On this, virtually all countries agree. Child marriage is a human rights violation. Despite laws against it, the practice remains widespread: Globally, one in every five girls is married, or in union, before reaching age 18. In the least developed countries, that number doubles  40 per cent of girls are married before age 18, and 12 per cent of girls are married before age 15. Child marriage directly threatens girls health and well-being. Marriage is often followed by pregnancy, even if a girl is not yet physically or mentally ready. In developing countries, nine out of 10 births to adolescent girls occur within a marriage or a union. In these countries, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15 to 19. Girls who are married may also be exposed to sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. When girls marry, they are often forced to drop out of school so they can assume household responsibilities. This is a denial of their right to an education. Girls who leave school have worse health and economic outcomes than those who stay in school, and eventually their children fare worse as well. Unfortunately, social media platforms are full of inaccurate postings on the subject from persons who are not seeking to raise awareness of the child marriage issue, but simply to demonize other religions and cultures. The following is one such example of this phenomenon:  To all you misguided, uninformed liberal women demonstrating in favor of embracing Islam, this young lady is being sold into sexual slavery as a child bride. She is a Christian. She watched her father beheaded and her mother raped. Where is her safe place? the meme asks. However, the blonde girl pictured here was not being sold into sexual slavery as a child bride by Muslims (or anyone else), and no credible reports (outside of the inflammatory meme itself) suggested she was a Christian who had seen her "father beheaded and her mother raped." The image used in the meme originated with a (no longer available) video from 2013 that captured a 7-year-old girl participating in a Quran recital competition, as noted in a Morocco World News article: article The picture shows an ISIS member, seemingly in his thirties, with a seven-year-old, crying girl, who had been interpreted as his bride. The photo sparked widespread condemnation on social media before a video on YouTube proved it to be a hoax. The picture generated several theories. The most popular theory [was] that the young girl had been converted to Islam before being forced to marry the ISIS member appearing in the picture .. The website Arabic Canada solved the mystery surrounding the outrageous picture, by sharing a video of what seems to be a Quran recital competition -- from which the picture was taken -- organized by ISIS in Klassa, a neighborhood in Aleppo, in 2013. The video shows the ISIS member, who was misleadingly presented as the young girls groom, having a small chat with her before she recites verses of the Quran. Feeling embarrassed for making several mistakes during her recitation, Ghada, the young girl, starts crying before the man returns. He then clearly tries to comfort her and boost her spirits. The referenced Arabic Canada website (now defunct) wrote of this picture as follows (roughly translated from Arabic): wrote A seven-year-old girl looks very frightened, while the man standing next to her looks smiling and happy. The text accompanying the photograph claims that the man in the picture forced the girl to marry him. Some versions even went so far as to identify the girl as a Christian who had been forced to convert to Islam and read the Quran. Of course, the picture produced a feeling of disgust in everyone who saw it. Some newspapers wrote articles denouncing the phenomenon of child marriage in Islam. One newspaper of course took the opportunity to refer to the marriage of six-year-old Aisha [the third wife of the prophet Muhammad] and claimed that Islam permitted and encouraged child marriage. third wife The photo is actually a screenshot from a video of a children's recitation contest held in Aleppo in September 2013, and although the organizers of the contest certainly belong to ISIS, the video includes no reference to marriage. The dismay on the girl's face was apparently triggered by her having made a mistake in reciting the Quran. Other screenshots from the video captured the girl looking considerably less distraught:    This isn't to say that child marriage isn't a real problem, or that it and other depredations  such as beheadings and rape  haven't been perpetrated by those associated with ISIS, but the image used in this meme isn't representative of any of those issues. Morocco World News.  "Truth Behind Alleged Marriage of ISIS Member with 7-Year-Old Girl."
  18 August 2014. United Nations Population Fund.  "Child Marriage."
  Accessed 18 March 2019. Arabic Canada.  " :       7 ."
  13 August 2014. A fixation on toilets took over the internet in mid-June 2021 when a social media user posted a photo to Reddit that claimed to depict a Japanese toilet with a hand sink attached to the top of it. According to the post, water from the sink is used to wash a persons hands before it is reused in the toilet bowl for future business. toilets Reddit  Screengrab/Reddit  Reddit   An internet search for the toilet-topping sinks revealed that there are several options available for less than $100. Product descriptions claim that the sink can be installed on a toilet in less than five minutes  simply take the already existing reservoir lid off of the toilet and replace it with the sink addition. A valve connects the faucet to the toilet and, according to customer reviews, water used to wash hands is then automatically drained into the toilet bowl and reused during flushing. customer reviews Similar products have been on the market in recent years and have been advertised as not only something to save water but a method that encourages men to wash hands. In 2013, NPRs "All Tech Considered" featured the toilet-sink  and toilet-urinal  addition, noting that the combination has been around in Japan since at least 1956. According to an excerpt from Leonard Korens book, 283 Useful Ideas From Japan, the Japanese inspired combo is both practical and budget-friendly: encourages men to wash hands All Tech Considered 283 Useful Ideas From Japan "This system costs less than conventional toilets and comes in eight- and-16-liter sizes and a rainbow of colors. Also available for bathrooms are artificial flushing-sound generations that people can use to cover up the sound of what they're doing without wasting water." The toilet review site, Toilet Found! noted that the toilet-sink systems became popular in Japan after World War II when the real estate came with a hefty price tag. The design was meant for small bathrooms and living quarters, where creativity and innovation were key to comfortability. In addition to space constraints, the system also conserves and reuses water and does not require a heater to warm the water, potentially lowering utility bill expenses as well. Toilet Found! The design is such that water from the supply line channels through the faucet for you to wash your hands. And then drained out through the sink drain and into the tank. The water will keep flowing to fill up the tank, until it gets shut off by the float, wrote the review site. This way water is not wasted. Compare to the usual when you have to wash your hands on a separate sink with clean water. And it adds up to more water used for each visit to the toilet. On April 7, 2021, the real estate gossip website Dirt reported that Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors had purchased a home in Topanga, an eccentric neighborhood located in the western portion of Los Angeles, for $1.4 million. Dirt reported eccentric Categorized under real estate purchases by "politicians," Dirt's headline reported, "Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors Lands Topanga Canyon Compound." (Cullors is a political activist, but she isn't a "politician" in the sense that she holds public office.) The story sparked a tsunami of spinoff articles and commentary with the aggregate effect of creating a cloud of doubt over the finances of the nonprofit organization associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, the peak of which was a claim in a meme that baselessly accused Cullors of using donations to Black Lives Matter to purchase the house:   But Dirt's article, which is the source that all of the stories and posts about the Topanga home purchase are based on, didn't report that Cullors purchased the home with BLM donations. It said the home was sold "to a corporate entity that public records show is controlled" by Cullors, but didn't name the corporation. Cullors is a fairly high-profile public figure. Aside from being an activist and organizer, she makes frequent media appearances. She is the co-author of a best-selling book, "When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir." She also signed a deal with Warner Brothers in late 2020 to create programming for the network's various platforms. book deal We sent Dirt an email asking if they would disclose the name of the business entity the home was sold to, but didn't receive a response in time for publication. We haven't been able to independently verify Dirt's report that Cullors purchased the home in Topanga. Her name didn't come up in our own public records search. In an April 2022 investigative report by New York Magazine's Intelligencer outlining a $6 million home purchase by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGN), however, movement leaders appeared to indirectly acknowledge that Cullors had indeed purchased properties, although it doesn't give specifics. In a statement sent to Snopes by email, BLMGNF directly denied the allegation that Cullors had used donation money to buy the Topanga Canyon home, or any other personal property: To be abundantly clear, as a registered 501c3, BLMGNF cannot and did not commit any organizational resources toward the purchase of personal property by any employee or volunteer. Any insinuation or assertion to the contrary is categorically false. Since the organization's inception in 2013, the Foundation said Cullors received compensation totaling $120,000 for work that included serving as spokesperson and engaging in political education. Since 2019, Cullors' role with the Foundation has been voluntary and unpaid. She currently serves as the executive director, per the Foundation's statement. The organization also characterized the narrative as a "right-wing offensive" against a high-profile Black activist that "not only puts Patrisse, her child and her loved ones in harms way, it also continues a tradition of terror by white supremacists against Black activists." We'll break down some of the dialogue and reporting around this story, but the important points are these: If it's true that Cullors purchased the Topanga home, no evidence has been presented that proves she did so with donation money. This claim is based on supposition. Important additional context is that while many stories about the home portray it as a lavish purchase, those portrayals are exaggerated. Compared with other properties listed on Dirt, the home reportedly purchased by Cullors is relatively modest. Other posts on the site detail multi-million dollar estates bought by the likes of pop music icon Madonna, tennis champion Serena Williams, and pop star Ariana Grande. Even if it's true that Cullors purchased a single family home in Los Angeles for $1.4 million, we note that because of overall home prices in L.A., that amount doesn't go as far as it would in other areas. Dirt reports that the home in Topanga has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a guest house and sits on just over a quarter of an acre-sized lot. It's not small but to call it a "mansion" as Fox News did in an April 13 headline is a stretch. headline Right-leaning Media Research Center tweeted, "The liberal media wont cover this: [Black Lives Matter] co-founder Patrisse Cullors bought a 1.4 MILLION dollar house near Beverly Hills." tweeted Everything in the city of Los Angeles could technically be described as being "near Beverly Hills" just as easily as it could be described as being "near Disneyland." The Topanga community is about 20 miles from Beverly Hills. Many of the reports touched on tensions among some activists within the Black Lives Matter movement itself by quoting comments given by Hawk Newsome, a BLM activist in New York, who told the New York Post he thought the nonprofit's finances should be investigated. New York Post Aside from getting record numbers of feet on the street in demonstrations across the country in the spring and summer of 2020, Black Lives Matter organizers told The Associated Press that it brought in $90 million in donations to the nonprofit organization associated with the movement, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. told The Post story published on April 10 also reported Cullors went on a "million dollar real estate buying binge" and claimed she spent $3.2 million "snagging four high-end homes." published When you read past the headline and leading language, the Post story really describes two modest home purchases, one in South Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central) and the other in Inglewood. Both homes are in working class communities and were purchased for $590,000 and $510,000 respectively. Like most homes in Los Angeles, they have appreciated in value since their most recent purchase date. South Central The Post also reports Cullors' wife bought a home in rural Georgia and that the couple "eyed" luxury property in the Bahamas, without purchasing it. Was this a "buying binge"? We don't have enough information from the Post story to answer questions like: Were these homes consecutively purchased, lived in and sold? Were other parties involved in the reported purchases? Were they lived in by family members? Did any of the addresses crop up due to errors in public records databases? errors Black Lives Matter was founded in 2013 by three women: Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. It was originated as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed Black teenager Trayvon Martin. But the phrase and its underlying civil rights cause have been the rallying cry for a national racial justice movement in response to the killing of Black people by police, and racism embedded in the criminal justice system. killing The spring and summer of 2020 saw the movement's biggest demonstrations in its history, with millions of Americans braving the COVID-19 pandemic to take to the streets, touched off by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As the movement reached critical mass and thus scored social and political wins, which included major companies affirming their commitment to racial justice and the election of progressive leaders, Black Lives Matter has also been a regular target for right-wing media and commenters. target media commenters Cullors resigned from the foundation in May 2021, stating the move had been in the works for more than a year. She told the Associated Press she was resigning to further focus on a new book and the TV deal with Warner Bros. In late August 2021, Cullors was appointed to the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. told appointed Updated to include Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation statement. Updated to note Cullors left her post with the non-profit organization in May 2021 and was appointed to the L.A. County Arts Commission in August 2021. During a visit to Howell, Mich., President Joe Biden touted key agenda items under negotiation in Congress. One of the proposals he wants to see receive final Congressional approval is support for child care, which he said would benefit both children and their parents, including mothers who want to take jobs outside the home. How can we compete in the world if millions of American parents, especially moms, cant join the workforce because they cant afford the cost of child care or elder care? They have to stay home, Bidensaidin the Oct. 5 speech. He went on to say that the United States had fallen behind its industrialized peers in the percentage of women in the labor force. Thirty years ago, the United States ranked sixth among advanced economies in the share of women in the workforce, Biden said. You know where we are today? Twenty-three. Twenty-two countries have a higher percentage of their women in the workforce making a competitive wage than the United States. While our competitors are investing in the care economy, were standing still. Has the United States really fallen so far behind in womens participation in the labor force? Our research shows it has. We asked the White House for a source, and they pointed to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a think tank that studies advanced industrialized nations. The data broadly supports how Biden characterized the shifts between 1990 and 2020. There are multiple ways to measure the phenomenon Biden addressed  notably, what age ranges are used. If you look at the labor force participation rate for all women at least 15 years of age, the United States ranked seventh in 1990, behind Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Canada. But by2020, the United States ranking had fallen to 17th. (Labor force participation rate refers to the percentage of a given group that is either employed or is actively seeking work.) An alternative statistic  the labor force participation rate for women in the prime working ages of 25 to 54  shows an even steeper U.S. decline. In1990, the United States ranked seventh, behind the same six countries. But by2020, the U.S. had fallen to 31st. The White House used a slightly different version of the OECD data than we did, which accounts for the differences in the U.S. rankings. But multiple economists told us that the differences in rankings were minor, and that the trend line was much more important. Specifically, the U.S. percentage of women working basically stagnated over those 30 years, even as 13 nations leapfrogged the U.S. between 1990 and 2020: Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. However you define it, I think the president is highlighting genuine trends, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution. Historically, women in the U.S. gravitated to the labor force earlier than women in other countries did. Right after World War II, only about one-third of U.S. women were in the labor force, but by the late 1990s, that percentage had risen steeply, to the low-60% range. Since then, however, it has plateaued and even fallen modestly overall. By the early 1990s, the United States ranked higher on this measurement than most of its economic peers. Since the 1990s, the downturn has been driven mostly by married women with a college degree, particularly those married to high-earning men, said Stefania Albanesi, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh. Albanesi said her research suggests that a rise in earnings of college-educated men, particularly those at the top of the income distribution, has reduced the pressure for married women to take paying work outside the home. As the U.S. rate began to fall, other nations caught up. Several factors drove these international shifts, economists say. One is that women in other countries have belatedly made gains in educational attainment, giving them a boost in the labor market. But perhaps the biggest difference comes from the lack of social policies in the United States that enable women with children to take jobs. The policies that are common in other industrialized countries but not in the U.S. include publicly provided child care services, an entitlement to paid parental leave, laws giving workers the right to demand a change to a part-time work schedule without exception and without being discriminated against, said Mihaela Pintea, an economist at Florida International University. The upshot of the lack of such policies in the U.S. is that its costly or burdensome for women with kids to remain in the workforce after they have a child, Burtless said. Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University economist, cautioned that its tricky to make cross-national comparisons on labor-force participation. Perhaps the biggest factor complicating Bidens comparison is that countries define part-time work differently. Generally speaking, when looking only at participation among women who work full-time hours, the U.S. ranks higher in international comparisons, Goldin said. If you did this comparison just for full-time work, wed be up there, she said. If you weighted by hours, wed be up there. Pintea added that, despite grim statistics like those cited by Biden, U.S. women who are working may still be better positioned in some ways. Effectively, the U.S. labor market environment pushes women to either skip working entirely or take a full-time job, rather than finding a middle ground. In a lot of other countries, women might work part-time as opposed to full time and may be less likely to be promoted into managerial positions, or may have lower wages than their male counterparts because of their career path, she said. Biden said, Thirty years ago, the United States ranked sixth among advanced economies in the share of women in the workforce. You know where we are today? Twenty-three. The specific rankings vary a bit depending on what measure one uses, though by one measurement, the U.S. position is even worse than Biden said. The general conclusion is the same: The United States used to rank near the top of the pack of industrialized countries in womens participation in the labor force, but over the past 30 years, many other countries have leapfrogged the U.S. in that measurement, as the rate in the U.S. stagnated or even fell. Economists say the U.S. rate has been lagging for several reasons, including a lack of government policies encouraging child care and paid leave and other countries catching up to the United States earlier gains in womens educational attainment. We rate the statement Mostly True. In November 2015, the biography of Frederick Trump, Donald Trump's grandfather, was condensed into two paragraphs and then passed around the internet via a meme. While some of the information included in the meme is accurate, much of it is either over-exaggerated or incomplete:  This particular rumor centers on the idea that Frederich Trump made his fortune via brothels and opium dens. While there is anecdotal evidence that Trump dabbled in prostitution, there is no proof that this made up the bulk of his fortune. In Gwenda Blair's 2000 book The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate, she described how Frederick Trump opened a series of restaurants and hotels during the Klondike Gold Rush in the 1890s. One of those hotels, The Arctic Restaurant and Hotel, was described as decadent and far superior to other restaurants in the area: book In the larder was salmon and an extraordinary variety of meats, including duck, ptarmigan, grouse, goose, and swan, as well as caribou, moose, goat, sheep, rabbit, and squirrel. Incredibly, the New Arctic served fresh fruit: red currants, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, even cranberries. A small oasis of luxury, the Arctics menu was a vast improvement over what the two restaurateurs had been able to offer on the trail. An anonymous letter to the Yukon, however, claimed that The Arctic Restaurant and Hotel was also known for prostitution: I would advise respectable women traveling alone, or with an escort, to be careful in their selection of hotels at Bennett, he wrote. For single men the Arctic has excellent accommodations as well as the best restaurant in Bennett, but I would not advise respectable women to go there to sleep as they are liable to hear that which would be repugnant to their feelings  and uttered, too, by the depraved of their own sex. While it's unclear if Frederich Trump directly profited from prostitution at his hotel (or whether it even occurred there), it should be noted that the world's oldest profession was relatively commonplace during the Gold Rush. The meme also claims that Frederick Trump decided to go back to Germany when police started cracking down on "his criminal rackets." Again, this is based on little more than a morsel of truth, and does not tell the whole story. In 1901, Trump sold his assets and returned to Germany. While one could argue that Trump made the decision because he believed that police were going to start enforcing prostitution laws, that is only one factor that led to Trump's departure for Germany: Frederick Trump saw that it was time to leave. If Major Wood actually enforced the laws regarding prostitution, gambling, and liquor, hotels and restaurants would be far less profitable. Not only that, the economic boom was bound to be short lived. There was not nearly enough solid economic development to absorb these newcomers in any long-term way; when the placer deposits were emptied, they would go back home. Without the umbrella of gold, other local industries would not be strong enough to keep going on their own and compete with cheaper sources farther south. The boom was over, Frederick Trump realized... ... Frederick Trump left just in time. He avoided the uproar when his erstwhile partner hit the skids, and he avoided the economic decline that would soon sweep over White Horse. Once again, in a situation that created many losers, he managed to emerge a winner. He had made money; perhaps even more unusual in the Yukon, he had also kept it and departed from White Horse with a substantial nest egg. He had accomplished this goal of making and saving enough money to marry. But he had no intention of doing so in America. For this important moment, he would have to return to Germany. While the meme exaggerated Trump's involvement in "criminal rackets," it did correctly state that Trump returned to the United States after the German government determined that he had originally left Germany in 1885 to avoid taxes and the army. returned In summation, Donald Trump's grandfather Frederick Trump was a German immigrant who made his fortune by opening several restaurants and hotels in Seattle and British Columbia during the Yukon Gold Rush. While some of these hotels may have been used for prostitution, gambling, or other seedy activities common on the trail, it is incorrect to say that Trump built his fortune on illegal activities. Grier, Peter.  "Donald Trump: The Son of an Immigrant."
  The Christian Science Monitor.  24 August 2015. Blair, Gwenda.  The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate.
  Simon and Schuster, 2000.  ISBN 0-684-80849-8.