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  • Snopes Digest #114: AI slop, new fall intern — and more

Snopes Digest #114: AI slop, new fall intern — and more

Here's what's happening inside the Snopes newsroom

Author

Izz LaMagdeleine
September 10, 2025

Sept. 10, 2025・Issue #114

1. Behind the Snopes: Trump's plane & Epstein's island

Let's talk about what's going on with Snopes: the newsroom, the products, the people, and everything and anything that makes Snopes, Snopes. This month, reporter Laerke Christensen broke down her article regarding a claim that Trump's plane flew to Epstein's island 37 times.

It seemed like the answer to a question everyone wanted to know — had Trump, a man who owns several aircraft and once even an airline, ever flown to Jeffrey Epstein’s island? When a claim landed in our inbox featuring a man who said he was an airline pilot and claimed Trump’s plane had flown to Little St. James island at least 37 times, we had to investigate.

However, this claim quickly turned out to be a house of cards. Commenters on the original Facebook post from a man named Tom Crosby had already picked out missing details like a lapel pin that did not match the airline Crosby claimed to have flown for. A reverse-image search led us to an Amazon listing for a pilot’s costume with an uncanny resemblance.

Perhaps more troubling: Little St. James has become the subject of intense scrutiny since Epstein was arrested and charged in 2019 with sex trafficking of minors. It's known the island didn’t have an airstrip for planes such as Trump’s. As claims about Epstein, the survivors of his abuse and Trump continue to swirl, we hope you’ll keep relying on our analysis to sort fact from fiction.

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2. Snopes-tionary: Here's what AI slop is — and why you should care

From reporter Jack Izzo:

AI slop is the evolution of spam, in a way. Like spam, slop is low-quality content. But thanks to AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney, it's even easier to produce. Slop can grow like a weed if left unchecked, overwhelming social media feeds and leaving users unsure of what's real and what's not.

Snopes has fact-checked spam content since the early days of the internet, so it's only natural that we've regularly covered AI-generated content since 2023. We've repeatedly checked claims about celebrities supposedly doing good deeds that originated with YouTube videos or Facebook pages that post slop. Animals also frequently appear in slop content. For example, we've looked into viral videos of rabbits and raccoons jumping on trampolines that were (sadly) fake.

3. Overheard at Snopes

We look into a lot of weird stuff at Snopes. We imagine it's very interesting to be a fly on the wall, so we wanted to give you a look at some of the things we have to say when fact-checking.

Overheard: “............on the one hand, I fear too punny Rae............on the other hand, I don't know if I'm just fearing your power...........”

— Web Producer/Production Editor Izz Scott LaMagdeleine

4. Since we last met: Snopes’ fall intern

From executive editor/managing editor Doreen Marchionni:

Please welcome Snopes’ first-ever fall college intern, William Kramer, from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Our newsroom has been eager to hire an intern from this esteemed journalism program, especially after we hired two graduates from there for full-time jobs, Rae Deng and Jack Izzo, in recent years. William is particularly interested in film, worked at the campus public radio station — and has even performed as the school’s mascot at athletic events. William begins his 12-week internship at Snopes on Sept. 16. Meanwhile, we recently bid adieu to our summer intern, Cindy Shan. Her work culminated in this pretty extraordinary investigation into money-making AI slop that essentially exploited the victims of the recent Texas floods.

Mental Health Break

Snopes investigates some grim and depressing claims, so we know how important it is to your mental health to see something silly, funny, or just plain heartwarming. Here are some links that made us smile.

5. Snopes-worthy Media

What Snopes is paying attention to across the web.

— Zach Helfand, The New Yorker

— Marta Szpacenkopf, LatAm Journalism Review

— Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times

Thanks for reading this edition of the Snopes Digest. We send new issues of the newsletter every month, so please add this email address to your white list and keep an eye out for the next issue.

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