While Snopes is proudly a fact-checking outlet, reporters didn't just write fact checks in 2025. They also wrote news articles when a claim our readers were asking about couldn't be rated.
The articles we published in 2025 that resonated the most with our audience often involved politics. Several stories featuring U.S. President Donald Trump made the list, including an article about whether FIFA moved 2026 World Cup matches outside of the U.S. due to concerns over the president's immigration policies. Another article about politics that made the cut examined how much time former President Joe Biden spent on vacation when he led the nation.
Here are our 10 most popular news stories of 2025, ranked from most page views to fewest:
Our top story from 2025 was a rumor that spread online about Trump invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 on April 20, 2025, followed by him declaring martial law. Users spread copypasta from a Medium blogger that turned out to be more of a prediction than a provable claim.
In August, a Facebook user who said he was a former Canadian Airlines pilot made a post claiming Trump's plane flew to Jeffrey Epstein's island at least 37 times. Our research cast doubt on the claim, including the Facebook user's alleged credentials: The post contained a photo of himself wearing what appeared to be a pilot's costume from Amazon.
For years, a rumor has spread online that comedian Robin Williams had a clause in his contract that required all of his movies to hire homeless people. While Williams did advocate for homelessness prevention, we found there's no supporting evidence to support this particular rumor.
Online users claimed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth oversaw the removal of former Secretary of State Colin Powell's name from a list of noteworthy military figures hosted on the Arlington National Cemetery website. While Powell's name was never entirely removed from the page, historical information about him was removed and later restored.
Posts online claimed in June that Iranian state TV announced a "great" or "big surprise" would occur "tonight" that the world would remember for centuries. The rumor spread as Iran and Israel attacked each other with missile strikes. Very few outlets reported the alleged quote, while those that did provided no evidence to support their claims.
A claim repeatedly spread online that former President Joe Biden spent 40% of his presidency on vacation. Our comprehensive analysis from February found the claim was inaccurate. The rumor spread from an exaggerated and incorrect Republican National Committee analysis.
After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in September, a rumor spread on social media that his widow, Erika Kirk, was expecting their third child. We found the claim was unfounded and spread from Facebook posts that were seemingly created to generate advertising revenue for websites linked in the posts.
TikTok users claimed in June that FIFA, the international soccer governing body, had decided to move 2026 World Cup matches from the U.S. due to Trump's immigration policies. The claim was yet another example of users sharing false or unfounded rumors, including some posts that featured the use of AI.
Rumors spread online in mid-April that Barron Trump, the president's youngest son, had been rejected from Harvard, Stanford and Columbia. The claim spread around the same time that the White House was threatening to cut federal funding from the schools. One Democratic senator, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, implied Trump may have frozen funds to Harvard because of a personal quest for revenge. We found no evidence supporting these rumors.
A former Kazakh security official claimed on Facebook that Trump was recruited in 1987 by the KGB, the intelligence agency of the Soviet Union, and assigned the code name "Krasnov." While Trump did visit Moscow in 1987, there is no clear evidence suggesting he was actively recruited by the KGB during that trip or at any other time.