It is sometimes said that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. For conspiracy theories etc that are argued for on social media, this applies to a particularly large extent, it seems.

Take the picture here, for example. An old photo of a window at “Stockholm County Idiocy Prison”. Along with the illuminating text: “This building was where Rosenbad is today. The house is new, but the contents seem to be the same…”

It appeared at an acquaintance’s house on Facebook yesterday. And seemed, just… A little too good to be true. Not unlikely, because somewhere the house with that name must have been, but…

Googled some well-chosen words and got clarity. And it wasn’t that hard. The picture had apparently made several turns on the internet. Several before me had become suspicious, investigated, and then wanted to write about the scam.

So: The prison (Fig. 2 & 3) was once a long time ago out in Upplands Väsby, in the hooks where Löwenströmska sjh is today about.

Sometimes you have to make a little more effort. As if to figure out how it was with this picture, which purported to show massive protests in Paris against the authorities’ corona restrictions…

The first victim of war is the truth

Then I used a pretty phenomenal free app (Android) called “Google Lens”.

Otherwise, there are several websites that specialize in reviewing and exposing rumors and outright lies that – in good faith, or completely deliberately – are spread. Snopes is one, and in Sweden there are Faktoids and Viral Reviewer. But often it goes a long way to just type in a few well-chosen words + “hoax”.