Fake News: Michael Moore NOT Accused Of Sexual Harassment By 4 Underage Girls

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

The fake/satire website Freedum Junkshun posted an article titled "BREAKING: Michael Moore Accused Of Sexual Harassment By 4 Underage Girls" which opened:

Fat liberal rabble-rouser Michael Moore is in a lot of trouble. As Hollywood elite Harvey Weinstein now faces charges for the rape of an actress as well as a slew of sexual harassment allegations, filmmaker Michael Moore now has to deal with his own accusations from a whopping 15 former staffers.

Fox News reported Monday:

While filming anti-gun movie Bowling for Columbine Sarah Slater, who was 16 at the time and on set as an extra, says Moore walked up to her and made "multiple passes."

"I rejected him every time but he wouldn't take no for an answer," Slater tells Fox. "He had me change into this really short skirt and he would just stare. At the end of the day, I was at a vending machine and felt a hand sliding up my thigh."

michaelmoore.jpg

There is no such report on the Fox News website. However the fake article has already been copied by several 'real' fake news websites that don't know or don't care that the original article was supposedly satirical in nature. Freedum Junkshun carries a satire disclaimer at the bottom of the page which reads:

We believe that there is nothing more precious than the mind of an aging conservative. Here we gather a boatload of bullhonkey, works of pure satirical fiction, to give the fist-shakers of the world a reason to hate. Reality is often in the eye of the beholder. You won't find any of it here.

Join the fun in the comments on our Facebook page where you too can watch David Hasselhoff running over someone's poodle magically transformed into a crime against humanity by Barack Obama or yet another murder the Clintons got away with.

The owner and main writer of the site is self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He runs several other websites such as asamericanasapplepie.org, ourlandofthefree.com and nunadisbereel.com (formerly thelastlineofdefense.org). Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". He has at least one accomplice who writes under the pen names "Freedom", "Captain Jellypants", "Butch Mannington" or "Captain Buck Atlantis".

Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up.

If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news. So far we've spotted this story on conservativecolumns.com, defensepatiot.club, usafirstinformation.com and thestarchronicle.com, all known fake news websites. Funnily enough the story also briefly appeared on As American As Apple Pie, another of Blair's sites, before it was deleted. You can still see that version in Google's cache here. Whichever version you saw first, don't fall for it and always Google before you share!

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  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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