Melvis Acosta

Information Integrity Lead at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate overseeing the DebunkIt project.

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

MISLEADING

The video in this post is not from the ongoing student protests in France.

It is from the 2025 “Festival of Music,” a music celebration held across France every June.

The student protests, which were motivated by poor educational conditions, including teacher shortages and overcrowded classrooms, began in a suburb outside of Paris on September 17, 2026, before growing into nationwide protests.

Many viral misleading posts have falsely linked the protests to Islam and migration.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

Lacks Context

There is no data to support the sweeping claims of widespread public-benefit fraud from undocumented individuals.

Analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission data from the Cato Institute found that between 2013 and 2024, U.S. citizens accounted for 95% of welfare lost to fraud.

Cato also found that non-citizens were less likely to be convicted of welfare fraud than citizens.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sShWp

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

MISLEADING

There is no data to support sweeping claims of widespread welfare fraud from Somali immigrants.

Somali culture does not promote gun violence.

Gun violence is a widespread issue across the United States. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were over 44 thousand gun-related deaths in 2024.

Decades of research point to the easy availability of firearms as a major contributing factor.

Read more: https://t.co/N5sxPRft5T

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

FALSE

There is no evidence that ongoing student protests in France are motivated by Islam.

Students across the country are protesting over poor educational conditions, including teacher shortages and overcrowded classrooms.

The protests began in a suburb outside of Paris on September 17, 2026, before growing into nationwide protests.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sShWp

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

Lacks Context

The data consistently show that U.S.-born individuals are more likely to commit homicide than undocumented immigrants.

Research from the Cato Institute and a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest that U.S.-born individuals commit homicide at higher rates than undocumented individuals.

The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also found that between 2012 and 2018, U.S.-born citizens were twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes as undocumented immigrants in Texas.

Research from the Marshall Project in 2019 found that increases in the number of undocumented immigrants did not lead to more violent crime.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sShWp

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

Lacks Context

This is not unique to Black individuals. The Violence Policy Center’s annual “When Men Murder Women” report has consistently found that the vast majority of murder victims who are women are killed by someone of the same race, including white individuals.

According to DOJ data from 2020, most violent incidents, including murder, against a white victim were committed by a white offender.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

FALSE

Muslims are not burning down France.

There is no evidence that student protests in France, which have sometimes escalated and resulted in fires, were motivated by Islam.

The protests, which were motivated by poor educational conditions, including teacher shortages and overcrowded classrooms, began in a suburb outside of Paris on September 17, 2026, before growing into nationwide protests.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

FALSE

During her speech at the People’s Conference for Palestine in August 2025, Rep. Rashida Tlaib did not call for Islam to take down the United States government.

Tlaib’s speech criticized U.S. support for Israel’s military actions in Palestine, which the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory called genocide in September of last year.

Tlaib never said, “We Islamist motherfuckers are in every corner of the United States.” When she said “we are [in] every corner of the United States,” she was referring to Palestinian Americans.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

FALSE

There is no evidence that Apple censors anti-immigrant material in private text messages.

Apple’s sensitive content warning feature uses on-device machine learning to analyze photos and videos for violence and nudity and can be turned off by the user.

As with any sensitive content detection software, this can sometimes mistakenly flag content that does not contain gore or nudity.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sShWp

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

Manipulated Media

The person in this video is not an imam, and he was not crying because people ate bacon while he was praying.

This video has been deceptively edited to cut out the context of the press conference held by Muslim students alongside Christian and Jewish leaders in November 2025 to address an incident where Muslim students were harassed by older men while praying on the University of South Florida campus.

The person at the podium is Abu Tahir, one of the students who was praying when three men began shouting slurs, mocking them, and waving bacon in their faces.

Tahir broke down while recalling the traumatic incident, which was captured on video, and said he feared the men could harm them as they exercised their constitutional right to pray.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

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FALSE

There is no evidence that shooting victim Ajike Owens or her kids attempted to kick down Susan Lorincz’s door or threatened to kill her before Lorincz opened fire and killed Owens.

On June 2, 2023, Susan Lorincz, a white woman, fatally shot her Black neighbor, Ajike Owens, through her locked door. Owens was in front of Lorincz’s door to confront her about yelling at her son and allegedly throwing roller skates at him.

Lorincz’s claims that Owens threatened her were contradicted by both physical evidence from the door and witness testimonies from neighbors.

Lorincz admitted to detectives that in the months leading up to the shooting, she had called the children “the n-word.”

The jury rejected Lorincz’s claims, and she was sentenced to 25 years in prison for manslaughter in November 2024.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[Melvis Acosta @melvisacostaa]

New debunk is up.

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

MISLEADING

The surgeon accused by an Ohio woman of amputating the wrong leg during surgery did not study medicine outside the United States.

According to his profile on Doximity, Dr. Gregory B. Krivchenia, the accused surgeon, earned his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Studies consistently show that international medical graduates deliver care that is equal to and, in some cases, better than U.S. medical graduates.

A 2010 study in Health Affairs that looked at over 240 thousand hospitalizations in Pennsylvania found no significant mortality difference between international and U.S. medical graduates.

A 2017 study in the British Medical Journal found that older patients treated by international graduates in the United States had lower mortality rates.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

MISLEADING

The video in this post showing the arrest of Columbia student and pro-Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi is from April 14, 2025.

Mahdawi, a permanent resident, was detained by immigration officers while attending his naturalization interview to become a citizen, but was released from custody 16 days later.

He is not currently in ICE custody, and his legal team is appealing a removal order.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

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FALSE

The mass shooting outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden in Austin, Texas occurred on March 1st, 2026.

In an update in May, the FBI said that the shooter, Ndiaga Diagne, who was killed after exchanging gunfire with police who responded to the scene, acted as a lone actor and that there was no evidence of any ties to a foreign terrorist organization.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

FALSE

There is no data to back the claim that Black people are spending 8 billion per year on DoorDash.

According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, white people represent the largest racial group of SNAP recipients in the United States, and the majority of SNAP recipients are not Black.

DoorDash allows users to order eligible grocery and pantry items with their SNAP benefits, not fast food. This service is used by people of all backgrounds.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[Melvis Acosta @melvisacostaa]

Just posted a new debunk.

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

MISLEADING

The vast majority of murders and sexual assaults committed against white people are committed by other white people.

FBI data from 2018 showed that 80% of white murder victims were killed by other white people.

The DOJ found that nearly 70% of all violent crimes against white victims in 2020, including sexual assault and rape, were committed by other white people.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[Melvis Acosta @melvisacostaa]

New debunk is up.

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

FALSE

There is no evidence to support the racist claim that McDonald's started phasing out play spaces for kids due to African and brown kids defecating on the rides.

McDonald's has never given a specific reason for phasing out play spaces for kids, which they call “PlayPlaces,” but the removal of many of these spaces coincided with a remodeling initiative they called “Experience of the Future.”

This initiative added technology like self-service kiosks to restaurants and emphasized the efficient use of space to serve as many customers as possible.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sShWp

[Melvis Acosta @melvisacostaa]

Just posted another debunk!

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

FALSE

There is no evidence that Muslims in North America and Europe are responsible for an increase in church fires.

Viral claims of Muslims burning down churches globally have been disproven as investigations have played out, with many fires being caused unintentionally, including one caused by electrical issues and another by a lightning strike.

Historically, the churches that have been victims of arson as part of targeted hate crimes in the United States have been Black churches that were set on fire by white supremacists.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sShWp

[Melvis Acosta @melvisacostaa]

New debunk is up.

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

Manipulated Media

This image of a halal meat section in a supermarket is AI-generated.

The vast majority of meat in the United States is not halal-certified, and there is no effort to make Americans consume food that is prepared to Muslim standards.

The requirements for non-meat food products to be halal often overlap with the requirements for a product to be kosher.

Many Americans have been eating food that is both halal and kosher their entire lives because much of what Americans consume is allowed in both religions.

Misleading posts about halal food have spread on social media following false reports that Tillamook was changing the way they make their cheese due to pressure from Muslims.

In reality, Tillamook changed its recipe years ago in a move that made some of their cheese not only halal, but also vegetarian and kosher.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R

[Melvis Acosta @melvisacostaa]

New debunk.

[DebunkIt @debunkit_org]

Manipulated Media

This video of a Muslim man confronting a woman for not wearing a hijab is AI-generated.

Misleading AI-generated videos are often used on social media to fearmonger about Muslims encroaching on freedoms in the United States.

Read more: https://t.co/Tx4S9sRK6R