–5 votes
in General Factchecking by Novice (980 points)

"The day after Nancy Pelosi said she would ask the FBI to investigate financial ties between peace protestors and Putin, she tells some protestor, "Go back to China where your headquarters is."

https://twitter.com/thackerpd/status/1752031699695816719

2 Answers

+1 vote
by Apprentice (1.6k points)
selected by
 
Best answer

Since this a rather recent event, there are no news articles with claims agreeing or disagreeing on what Nancy Pelosi has said. The video posted with "evidence" has a lot of busy noise making it hard to determine what actually has been said. 

Paul D. Thacker, the person whose tweet is linked, is an investigative journalist based in Spain according to his own website. He has a history of writing scientific ethics for numerous news sites such as New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and others. He founded The Disinformation Chronicle, which goals is similar to News Detective, but focuses on scientific based information.

Halal Flow, the account that was quoted by Thacker, is supposedly a politics and news sharing organization. The only information I could find about them is through their Twitter account. There is a link in their description to a Patreon where subscribers can financially support the account. Looking through their tweets, a lot of their content are clips and videos from other news sources. I do not know if they modify/cut any videos to mislead people or if they simply repost them.

Although Tracker seems to be credible, Halal Flow is questionable as a source. And since no other news sites or organizations have made any claims about the original statement, there is no way to confirm or counter the claim. 

No available information
by Novice (610 points)
I found this answer very helpful and accurate. Due to the lack of information, it is sometimes hard to answer these articles, but this did a good job of analyzing the article, and it's information in a way that the reader can understand.  Even though there is a lack of information they still link important sources that help them tell the story of this issue.
by Novice (640 points)
This information has been great for my understanding of the situation. There is not a lot of information on this subject. This means a couple things; you have to take this information with a grain of salt, and since no one else is talking about this it is a little suspicious. If Nancy Policy was evidently and loudly expressing statements like this you would think there would be more media coverage on it. really good response to this claim. Good job breaking down the sources to prove credibility.
by Novice (790 points)
Due to the lack of concrete information on this situation, it is definitely hard to come to conclusions about it. You did a very good job using what you were given to come up with a very valid fact-check. I like how you dug into the background of the website and stated how you really could only find information about them on Twitter, which is definitely valuable information about if they can really be trusted or if their word should maybe be taken with a grain of salt or further researched - to which I would have to say both.
+8 votes
by Novice (570 points)
Halalflow on x, the original source of the video of Nancy Pelosi, they post a lot about politics and shows clips from other media content that is ran by Ryan Grim. Ryan Grim, as well as Paul D. Thacker (the reposter), are both American journalists focussing on politics. Thacker also writes about science, medicine and environment. To say these are reliable sources is hard. While they both have strong careers as journalists, we don't fully understand their biases. The video is showing Nancy Pelosi telling protestors to go back to China to their head quarters. Her face is covered when it gets said which makes it hard to tell if it was her who actually said it. Pelosi has been making comments about protestors that have been unsettling for many groups of people. The only other major source that has commented on Pelosi is CNN along with a few other smaller news outlet. The other place where the video is getting shown is reddit which is suspicious. Overall I think there is not enough information to fully determine what is going on, however I feel there is enough informations to make connections with Pelosi.
No available information
by Apprentice (1.3k points)
I thought you did a good summary of the issue. Especially going into the backgrounds and reputations of the American journalists that posted and reposted this video on X (twitter). I think it would be important to add links to the different articles covering this story, no matter how small they are. In addition, it is important to mention how in the video, the whole screen just goes black and you can't tell at all who is speaking, not to mention the background noise from protesters and other traffic. I also think it is important to ask, why Nancy Pelosi would ever say something like this. She is a smart woman, with more than enough experience in politics and the public eye to make a statement like this. The likelihood she said, is not very high.
by Apprentice (1.6k points)
You have a super good run down. Throw in some links to your sources to make that argument even beefier.
by Novice (700 points)
Very powerful analysis, the search you do is absolutely reliable. Nancy Pelosi is a politician, and I can understand the need to create some heat before a presidential election, but if she really says something like this and it's easy to piss off some people, it should be bad for her.
by Apprentice (1.2k points)
This was a great fact-check. I appreciate the fact that you included the context of the journalists who first published this story. I also appreciate the way you noted that not many new sources have picked up on this story. Overall, this is a very fact-check.
by Novice (920 points)
This is definitely a difficult fact-check due to its recent uploading. I think your conclusion is the more reasonable to arrive at. With a lack of professional opinions and first-hand accounts, it is next-to-impossible to determine beyond a doubt whether or not Pelosi said what is quoted in the claim. I do think it is important to consider the original account and the re-poster, although that is still not enough information to determine the credibility of the actual source itself and what is being said in the video. Overall, great fact-check.

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