In December 2024, a video circulated online claiming that Barron Trump, the youngest son of US President-elect Donald Trump, had given up his seat to an elderly veteran. The video has gained over a million views at the time of writing.
Users flooded the video with comments, appearing to believe the story. “He was taught the right way how to honor veterans and to respect all,” a top comment read.
But we did not discover any evidence that this incident occurred. The story originated on Elite Stories and temporarily spread to other YouTube accounts (the veteran appeared in most of the video thumbnails), but no credible media outlet has reported on such a story, which would be highly newsworthy. ‘interest.
The video also showed symptoms of AI generation: YouTube marked it as “edited or content. ”
Finally, the video description included a disclaimer clarifying that the channel published fictitious stories:
The stories presented on this channel are completely fictional and are designed for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to genuine events, Americans, or conditions is purely coincidental and unintentional. These narratives are intended to describe, reference, or constitute genuine events, people, or entities. .
In short, because we discovered no evidence that this story was true and the video description showed that it was “completely fictitious”, we state that this is false.
– YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUGzv4MOgfs. Accessed 24 Dec. 2024.
Taija PerryCook is a Seattle-based journalist who has previously worked for the PNW’s Crosscut news site and the Jordan Times in Amman.