In 2022, a video that appeared to be a recording of someone on a boat experiencing a volcanic eruption — tsunami waves and all — circulated widely on social media. And somehow the video survived as the boat submerged beneath tsunami waves.

Did a Boater Really Capture a Volcanic Eruption?

According to fact check, in July 2022, for example, the Twitter account @AwesomeEarthPix, with more than 500,000 followers, posted a version of the video. In that tweet, the video’s audio toward the end included voices shouting unintelligibly.

pic.twitter.com/Nu3PrpbsTw

— Earth Pics (@AwesomeEarthPix) July 16, 2022

However, in a reply to that tweet, the image fact-checking Twitter account @Hoaxeye, pointed out that the footage was not authentic, but rather the product of digital-editing software. The reply tweet by @Hoaxeye included what that account claimed to be the source of the video.

That’s a CG/VFX artwork by ‘aleksey__n’ on Instagram. Source: https://t.co/TdkXoLxEgG #RespectArtists https://t.co/iy3xD0ROLm

— HoaxEye (@hoaxeye) July 17, 2022

When we looked into that alleged source; a November 2021 Instagram post by user @aleksey__n. That post — which, based on our research, was indeed the origin of the footage — showed the explosion and subsequent tsunami waves with the sounds of birds and waves, and tension-filled music, in the background. The Instagram caption stated “Recreation” along with a number of revealing hashtags, including “#3d”, “#animation”, and “#cgi.”
The video was not real, however. Rather, the footage was a result of computer-generated imagery (CGI).

Aleksey Patrev, the person behind the Instagram account, confirmed to AFP in January 2022 that he was the creator of the video, and he said the footage “is computer graphics and has nothing to do with reality.” At that time, the video was circulating with the false claim that it depicted a volcanic eruption in Tonga.

A volcanic eruption that caused tsunami waves really did take place in Tonga in January, but this video did not depict it.

In a series of videos uploaded as Instagram Stories in late 2021, before he posted the finished clip that went viral, Patrev showed how he made the video with special effects. Three different clips (we took screenshots of them and display them below) showed the process of layering special effects to display a realistic-looking volcanic explosion followed by a tsunami.

Since the original source of this footage confirmed it was the result of CGI and did not show a real volcanic explosion from the perspective of a boater, we rated this claim “False.”

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The quote pertaining nothing being certain in life except death and taxes has recently been attached to ads for life insurance, and jokes circulated on social media

Did Benjamin Franklin Pen the famous ‘Death and Taxes’ Quote?

Claim – Franklin once wrote, “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”

On Nov. 13, 1789, Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s Founding Fathers, penned a letter to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy. A small part of that letter became famous in future centuries. One line from Franklin read, “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” This was a genuine quote. However, it was not the first time that this sentiment had been expressed in written literature.

Around seven decades before Franklin wrote his letter to Le Roy, Christopher Bullock had written the line in his play, “The Cobbler of Preston.” The line about “death and taxes” appeared on page 21 in the version of the play that was scanned into the Internet Archive. It basically said that, “it’s impossible to be sure of anything but death and taxes”:

You lye, you are not sure; for I say, Woman, ’tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes — therefore hold your Tongue, or you shall both be soundly whipt—Sure I know my Office??—Give me some Sack?—Lord, how I sweat!

It has now been more than three centuries since Bullock first published his play in 1716. On social media, we found that Franklin’s old “death and taxes” quote has often been used in posts to promote life insurance and tax filing deadline dates. Additionally, we noticed that some users liked to mention the quote as kind of a joke along with whatever they believed to be other sure things in life, for example – soccer players and potato chips.

In addition, Quote Investigator had also reported about a number of other examples of published works that contained the sentiment about death and taxes during the 18th century.

It is Correct Attribution.

In conclusion, it’s true that Franklin penned these words in a letter in 1789. At the same time, the same sort of sentiment about “death and taxes” previously appeared in a play decades earlier.

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An image showing a vintage ad for orange juice from the 1970s that featured actress Joan Crawford saying “I enjoy seven inches every morning” was recirculated on social media since 2 months ago.

This is not a genuine newspaper advertisement but a fake ad created by altering the images on a genuine vintage advertisement for orange juice from the 1950s, and then changing the original slogan to the sexually suggestive version shown above.

The Florida Oranges Commission ran a series of advertisements in the 1950s, in Life Magazine that encouraged people to drink more orange juice. These ads typically carried the slogan, “Drink This Much Florida Orange Juice Every Day” or “For the Vitamin C You Need Every Day”:

Claim: A vintage ad for orange juice from the 1970s featured the slogan from actress Joan Crawford, “I enjoy seven inches every morning.”

The fake “Joan Crawford” ad was created by altering one of these vintage ads. In the comparison below, you can see the remnants of the original’s yellow bow below Joan Crawford’s face:

We rate this ad FALSE. However, we are unable to determine who created the fake Joan Crawford ad.

Do you know who created this ad?

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