Tom Phillips

Editor (former)

Tom led our fact checking team and was responsible for ensuring that our fact checks were as accurate and fair as possible. Tom was previously the Editorial Director of Buzzfeed UK and his experience includes Buzzfeed, Trinity Mirror’s UsVsTh3m, MSN and Metro UK.

23 November 2020

The Daily Mail’s chart of Covid-19 death figures doesn’t use the real numbers

The chart of weekly deaths claimed to show that deaths were barely higher than previous years, but the figures are wrong.

8 September 2020

The word “robot” comes from Czech, not Greek like GPT-3 claims

GPT-3 is mistaken about the etymology of the word robot.

26 April 2020

Fake stories wrongly claim Elisa Granato, one of the UK's first Covid-19 vaccine trial participants, has died

False news reports wrongly claim that Dr Elisa Granato, one of the first participants in a UK Covid-19 vaccine trial, has died. She is not dead.

21 April 2020

There is no evidence supporting claims about a government-run network of fake NHS Twitter accounts

Viral posts on social media claim to have uncovered a network of fake Twitter accounts created to post pro-government messages. There is no evidence for this.

11 March 2020

There’s no evidence that the new coronavirus can survive on packages for 28 days

There’s no reason to believe that the new coronavirus can survive for long periods on packages from affected areas.

27 February 2020

There wasn’t more polar ice “than ever” in 2015

There was not more ice than ever in 2015—the polar ice caps have been shrinking for decades.

27 February 2020

How many birds are chickens?

Around 4-12% of birds are poultry, but if you looked at mass rather than the number of birds, poultry would account for 70%.

13 February 2020

These aren’t satellite images and they don’t show evidence of mass cremations in Wuhan

Images claiming to show high levels of sulphur dioxide above Wuhan are not based on real satellite data.

4 December 2019

Labour claims about savings under their policies are not credible

These figures are not credible and do not represent what “average families” will save under Labour’s policies.

30 November 2019

Fake Jeremy Corbyn tweet spreads after the London Bridge attack

A fake tweet falsely claims Jeremy Corbyn said the London Bridge attacker was “murdered by British Police”.

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About

Tom Phillips

Editor (former)

The Daily Mail’s chart of Covid-19 death figures doesn’t use the real numbers

The word “robot” comes from Czech, not Greek like GPT-3 claims

Fake stories wrongly claim Elisa Granato, one of the UK's first Covid-19 vaccine trial participants, has died

There is no evidence supporting claims about a government-run network of fake NHS Twitter accounts

There’s no evidence that the new coronavirus can survive on packages for 28 days

There wasn’t more polar ice “than ever” in 2015

How many birds are chickens?

These aren’t satellite images and they don’t show evidence of mass cremations in Wuhan

Labour claims about savings under their policies are not credible

Fake Jeremy Corbyn tweet spreads after the London Bridge attack

Evidence you can rely on