How can I report Fake News with deceptive misleading statements? Jessica Nabongo is an "influencer" on the popular social media apps instagram, twitter, and Facebook. She marketed herself as attempting to be the first black woman to visit every country. Her "brand" is based on this phrase. She gives speeches about being the first..., sells photography branded "first..." and sells consultations on travel, branded "first...." While she was attempting to visit every country, another woman named Spotts was verified as already visiting every country from 1979-2018. Nabongo has internal connections with the media and has intimidated them out of covering Spotts the way she should have been covered. Detroit media and tourism continued calling Nabongo "first" on live broadcasts until outrage grew against them. She also manipulated naive interns into posting "first...." Most have stopped but the Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook posts continue. Nabongo's refusal to acknowledge, causes her followers to bully Ms. Spotts. Nabongo has continued to raise money, obtain sponsors, and deceive unaware media, under the false pretense that she's going to be "first" black woman to visit every country. Is this fraud? Wonnie Spotts, the first women to visit every country List of African-American firsts
There is no law in the US that says you must tell the truth on the internet. Some places where one must tell the truth are: When speaking to police, the FBI, and most government agencies When filing your taxes with the IRS In certain business contracts When testifying before Congress But on the internet, you can claim to be the first man on the moon with impunity. If someone is gullible enough to believe you and send you money, that is their fault and responsibility. As far as eating a Pangolin, why should she "admit" it, when it was documented on Instagram? There is no duty to officially apologize for it. You can try to report her to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act, but as it occurred outside the USA, they will be powerless. Her claims are dubious, and possibly incorrect. Her treatment of an endangered animal is reprehensible. However, you posted this to a law site, asking about "reporting it" (to some sort of authority), and tagged it "criminal law". Her behavior is troubling, but I don't see anything that is remotely illegal or criminal.
Article 640 of the Italian Penal Code under the heading &quot;Crimes against property by fraud&quot; begins (via Google Translate): Anyone who, by artifice or deceit, by misleading someone, procures an unfair profit to himself... And the article (cited by the OP in a comment) says the suspect... ...worked in the health sector and had been suspended from his job because he had refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The jab is mandatory for all health workers. So, it seems the allegation is that he intended to &quot;profit&quot; by gaining a COVID-19 vaccine certificate and therefore unjust employment after attempting to use the silicone patch to deceive the health worker. Edit following @jkej's comment observing that the alleged unfair profit was never actually procured. The more likely charge - depending on the actual evidence - would seem to fall under Article 56 which begins under the heading Crime Attempted (again via Google Translate): Whoever carries out suitable acts, directed in an unequivocal way to commit a crime, is liable for an attempted crime, if the action is not carried out or the event does not occur.
Any google review would be hearsay. That means, it would be proof that someone posted a review, and what was written in the review, but it wouldn't be proof that any facts claimed in the review were true. As it is proof of posting, anyone who feels slandered could sue for slander and be successful (depending on circumstances). But trying to claim that the contents of a review is a true fact will fail. You can of course try to contact the person writing a review, and they might be willing to appear in court as a witness. That would make it a statement by a witness which would be taken seriously, and not just hearsay. Since lying in a court as a witness is a serious matter, someone posting a false review will very likely not be willing to appear in court for you.
If what that quote says is actually true, no that is obviously not a crime. Sending law enforcement to stop a crime is not a crime, no matter who benefits. In fact turning a blind eye and letting someone benefit would have been the crime. But this is not a legal matter. People are upset because the person saying this has a track record of saying things that are actually not true and that is why many people suspect a crime. Because if any part of this sentence turns out to be not true (and based on this persons history, that chance is very high), then yes, a crime may have been committed. If any predecessor had said &quot;I sent the FBI to stop child kidnapping and it stopped immediately&quot;, nobody would question that that is obviously not a crime. They would applaud him for it. Because with any predecessor, people would have believed their words to be true, at least in the very broad sense.
Sometimes In general, intentionally false speech gets less protection than other speech, and in some cases it is unprotected. The classic example of speech that is unprotected is "Falsely shouting FIRE in a crowded theater". Note that this is both intentionally false and highly likely to be seriously harmful to multiple uninvolved people. On the other hand, the classic case of New York Times vs Sullivan said that, at least when the subjects were public officials (later broadened to public figures) it was not enough to prove simple falsehood in a defamation case, one must prove "actual malice" (an unfortunate term) which in this context means statements that are either knowingly false or are made with reckless disregard for the truth. The court in that case said, in effect, that if a newspaper had to be sure that its every statement could be proved true in every detail, it would be unwilling to vigorously report on matters of significant public concern (this is a paraphrase, I'll add a quote later). Opinions are considered legally not to be either false or true. "President Jone is the worst leader the US has ever had" Is a statement of opinion, and so is not defamation. Moreover, in political contexts, attempts to punish false statements of fact that are not defamatory have been held unconstitutional. One example was the "Stolen Valor" act, which punished falsely claiming to have been awarded a medal by the US armed forces. This was held to be against the First Amendment. In general, regulation of speech (which here includes writing and other forms of communication) must be fairly narrowly drawn and must have good reasons behind them to survive a court challenge. How much so depends on the nature of the law, and particularly whether it is "content-neutral" or not. Details and cites to come when i have a little more time.
There is no magic about the word &quot;allegedly&quot;. &quot;Rob allegedly killed Alice&quot; simply means &quot;Someone said that Rob killed Alice&quot;. It implies that the person reporting this is not claiming that it is true or false, but just reporting what someone else has said. If in fact some person did say that, such a statement is true, and quite probably not defamatory. However, if the original claim is unreliable, and it is being repeated in a way that serves to lend it credibility, it could still be considered defamation by implication. If Rob has been charged, or accused by a credible source, or multiple such sources, reporting on that accusation will normally not itself be defamation. Saying &quot;I allege that Rob killed Alice&quot; is just saying that &quot;I claim that Rob killed Alice&quot; and might well be defamatory if Rob did not in fact do so. Again there is nothing magic about any particular word here. It is the overall meaning of the statement that makes it defamatory or not, as that meaning would be reasonably understood by readers or listeners. Any statement that will be understood as carrying a defamatory meaning may be an act of defamation. There is also nothing magic about Rob having been formally charged. Such a charge is a fact that can be freely reported on. Widespread or credible claims that Rob is the killer are also facts, and can also be reported. But if the only source is an anonymous vid on YouTube, with no supporting evidence, that is not a credible claim. Reporting it in a way that makes it sound far more credible than it is may cause people to believe the false accusation, and thus be defamatory. Again the overall meaning of the statement is important.
No, it doesn't seem like you did anything wrong. You can't have committed fraud because you didn't have the intent of entering the museum without paying. Fraud is defined in section 263 StGB: (1) Whoever, with the intention of obtaining an unlawful pecuniary benefit for themselves or a third party, damages the assets of another by causing or maintaining an error under false pretences or distorting or suppressing true facts […] You had no intention of obtaining an unlawful benefit. You presumably did not misrepresent your disability status. German criminal law has a related violation in Section 265a StGB, “obtaining benefits by deception”: (1) Whoever obtains the output of a machine or the services of a telecommunications network which serves public purposes or uses a means of transportation or obtains entrance to an event or facility by deception with the intention of not paying the fee […] Again, your lack of intent means that you haven't committed this crime. Interpreting what actually happened: The K20 ticket fees are reduced for severely handicapped people with 50% GdB (degree of disability indicating the person's difficulty of participating in society, in particular that person's difficulty for working a normal job, as determined by the VersMedV). You were not attested such a degree of disability via the German system, and therefore were not eligible for the discounted entrace fee of EUR 10. The museum has no obligation towards you to actually collect those fees. They can waive them whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. The museum could have given you the discounted price even without suitable evidence of your disability. Instead, they waived the fee entirely. If anyone is going to have problems here, it is the person at the ticket counter for failing to collect the appropriate fees. But that is an internal issue for the museum. You legally obtained a valid ticket to visit the museum. Translations were taken from the official page https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html
Where the President explicitly tells a newspaper that they should reveal their sources. Is this not illegal in the US? It is not illegal. Well, it would be a U.S. Attorney, rather than the President himself. You're thinking of shield laws, but no such law exists at the federal level. Moreover, although some people might think that the First Amendment ("freedom of the press") would protect a journalist in such a case, the Supreme Court has held that it doesn't, though the government is required to "convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest". So if a reporter were subpoenaed in federal court to reveal a source, and they couldn't convince a court to quash the subpoena under the Branzburg test, they'd have to either reveal their source or be held in contempt. In practice, many reporters have chosen the latter, and served time in jail rather than reveal the source. For instance, Judith Miller. There've been a number of proposals to create such a federal law, but so far Congress hasn't seen fit to do it. According to the Wikipedia article, every state except Wyoming has some sort of shield protection for journalists, either in statute or case law, though the protections are not necessarily absolute. So a state court or prosecutor would find it much more difficult to enforce such an order.