CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab that draws on the work of its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check, to recap the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation.  

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CheckMate February 24, 2022

This week, CheckMate dredges up some of the key claims being shared online regarding a major train derailment and toxic spill in the US state of Ohio.

We also look at the independent candidate getting ahead of the game with claims of electoral fraud one month out from the New South Wales state election.

Fact checking the Ohio train disaster

Three weeks on from the derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals in the village of East Palestine, Ohio, a flood of conspiracy theories and misinformation has dominated online discourse about the disaster.

The derailment of freight train tanker carriages carrying a toxic, flammable gas called vinyl chloride led authorities to burn off the chemicals in an effort to avoid an explosion.

Soon after the crash, thousands of fish in nearby creeks were found dead, while residents complained of health issues and reported dying and sick pets.

Online, claims of a lack of mainstream media coverage of the event, combined with reports of other train derailments and chemical spills, have laid a foundation for conspiracy theorists to suggest the Ohio disaster was part of an “attack” that was being covered up.

One such tweet, viewed more than 100,000 times, suggested a “Chernobyl-level cover-up” had occurred and that a “news blackout” was in place. Another pointed to a second train derailment in Detroit, stating “America is under attack from within”.

But as fact checkers and other reporters have pointed out: the derailment has been covered extensively by major news organisations; train derailments are not uncommon in the US; and there’s no evidence of a coordinated attack.

FactCheck.org, for instance, found that “news coverage of the train crash and its aftermath has been steady in both local and national outlets”.

“The Associated Press, NPR [National Public Radio] and CNN, for example, each published an article on the crash the day after it happened,” the fact checkers reported.

“Coverage continued throughout the following week and picked up even more in the second week after the crash, according to a search on Lexis Nexis, as claims on social media spiralled.”

The fact checkers also pointed out that more than 1,000 train derailments occurred annually, a number that had remained relatively steady for a decade (1,049 in 2022 compared to 1,311 in 2013).

Importantly, derailment of train carriages carrying hazardous goods was also not uncommon, with more than 520 such carriages derailed in 2022, according to FactCheck.org.

As for whether there was any evidence of an attack or sabotage, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) told AFP Fact Check: “No indications of sabotage/foul play in the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern freight train derailment near East Palestine, Ohio.”

Meanwhile, a slew of photos and videos purporting to show the aftermath of the derailment have been found by fact checkers to have no connection to the crash.

PolitiFact found, for example, that a photo supposedly showing birds that had “dropped dead” in the neighbouring state of Kentucky following the derailment was actually taken in Arkansas in 2018.

In a case of the truth arguably being stranger than fiction, an ornithologist told the local Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2018 that the birds’ demise may have been the result of, to put it in Australian parlance, going too hard on the grog.

“Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told the newspaper that recent warm days and cool nights may have caused berries in the area to ferment, getting the birds so intoxicated that they fell out of trees or off buildings and died,” PolitiFact reported.

Fact checkers at AFP took aim at another photo shared out of context, this one showing the aftermath of an explosion in China in 2015, not the recent scene in Ohio as claimed.

Similarly, USA Today fact checkers found that a video showing low-hanging dark clouds over a residential neighbourhood also predated the train derailment, with the video existing online since at least November 2022 with captions implying the clouds were seen in Oregon, more than 3,000km from Ohio.

Independent candidate starts early with claims of ‘electoral fraud’ in NSW

An independent candidate for next month’s NSW election has begun laying the groundwork for post-poll claims of electoral fraud, despite a dearth of evidence.

Speaking at a so-called “freedom rally” outside the Russian Consulate in Sydney last week, Riccardo Bosi, a former SAS soldier who is running for the upper house, said there would be “cheating” on election day and encouraged his supporters to avoid pre-polls.

“Now, if we don’t win, the evidence will be so tough that the NSW Electoral Commission will be found guilty of electoral fraud,” Mr Bosi told the crowd. “It’s just so obvious. We know that they do that.”

Mr Bosi went on to suggest that pre-poll votes filled out before election day would be discarded and replaced with other “pre-filled ballots”.

“The Liberal, Labor, National, Greens and UAP decide who’s going to win well beforehand.”

The NSW Electoral Commission rejected Mr Bosi’s claims, saying on Twitter that it had “a range of measures in place to ensure the integrity of the election process”.

Indeed, there is no evidence to suggest that pre-poll votes have been tampered with before early voting begins on March 18.

According to Esther Chan, bureau editor of RMIT FactLab’s CrossCheck unit, false claims about election fraud were popularised by former US president Donald Trump and have since become part of strategies to undermine the integrity of electoral processes worldwide.

Steve Bannon’s podcast tops list of shows spreading inaccurate claims, report finds

A report from the Washington-based think tank The Brookings Institution has found that a podcast by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon topped the list of political podcasts when it came to peddling misinformation.

In an analysis of more than 36,600 episodes of political podcasts from 79 producers, the study found that Bannon’s The War Room had “shared the most unsubstantiated or false claims”.

According to the report, close to 20 per cent of all episodes of The War Room contained claims that fact checkers from Snopes and PolitiFact had found to be “false or unsubstantiated”.

“Seven other shows featured false or unsubstantiated claims in more than 10 per cent of all episodes,” the researchers found.

“Of these shows, just two did not feature in Apple Podcasts’ top 100 in April 2021 or November 2020.”

The hosts of the shows that had shared the most misinformation had collectively reached an audience of more than 28 million on social media, the report stated.