Fact-Checking Website Crashes During Trump's State of the Union Address

A political fact-checking website crashed during President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.

Politifact's "truth-o-meter" fact checker went down on Tuesday evening due for around five minutes at the halfway point of the president's address, according to a tweet from the site.

The fact-checking site posted a further message five minutes later to say the site was back up and running.

The site crash prompted a flurry of tweets to Politifact, with some social media users suggesting the website had crashed because so many people were eager to find out whether statements made in the speech were true.

Ahead of the president's speech, the website had checked more than 498 of Trump's statements, and shared a tweet stating that on those occasions it had found four percent of the statements were true, 12 percent mostly true, 15 percent half true, 21 percent mostly false, 33 percent false, and 15 percent "pants on fire," the website's categorization of an outright lie.

According to the website, the statements made in Trump's Tuesday address checked boxes in every category apart from outright lies.

"Trump's statements cycled through every Truth-O-Meter rating, except for Pants on Fire. We tallied two False, three Mostly False, one Half True, three Mostly True, and one True statements," Politifact wrote in an article assessing the truth behind the address.

Of the particular statements that were highlighted as false during the speech were his description of the green card lottery, which he is keen to scrap, as the provision of "random" green cards to people "without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of American people."

However, the green card lottery includes a vetting procedure and is open only to candidates who meet specific education and work requirements.

The president was also found to have made questionable statements about rising wages and the release of terrorists.