Fake News: Colin Kaepernick Did NOT Sign 2 Year Deal With The Steelers For $8 Million

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

Prank website Channel24News was used by someone to post an article titled "Colin Kaepernick signs 2 year deal with the Steelers for $8 million". It read:

Free agent Colin Kaepernick today signed a 2 yr 8 million dollar contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers today as a back up to Ben Roethlisberger.

kaepernick.jpg

This is not true, no such news has been announced. Colin Kaepernick remains unsigned, and many peopel speculate it is because of a controversy described by Wikipedia as follows:

In 2016, Kaepernick gained national attention when he began protesting by not standing while the United States national anthem was being performed before the start of games, motivated by what he viewed as the oppression of people of color in the U.S.

We can't say if this is the real reason why he remains a free agent, but we do know one thing for sure: Channel24News is a prank website operated by a Korry Scherer from Milwaukee, WI. according to WHOIS data. The site lets visitors create their own realistic looking fake news stories to prank friends and family.

pranked.jpg

The site seems to be part of a network of similar sites. So far we've found these, but there may be others:

  • channel22news.com
  • channel23news.com
  • channel24news.com
  • channel28news.com
  • channel45news.com

If you see someone sharing the Kaepernic/Steelers story believing it to be true, send them here to be informed about the truth...

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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