Fake News: Girl NOT Sold For $500 And Weed, NOT Raped And Killed

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

An anonymous writer used prank website trend-news.com to post an article titled "Girl raped and killed after friends sold her for $500 and weed". The full text of the hoax read:

16 year old Lucaya found dead november 4 on saturday after being drugged raped and killed. She was out with her friends and they agreed to sell her for $500 and weed. The police is under investigation for this poor 16 year old girl from chicago

As you coud probably tell from the horrific spelling and grammar alone the story is not true. Why would the police be under investigation? Why repeat her age? Who needs to use capital letters anyway?

The picture used with the story is just a random snap that pops up if you search for 'curly deep wave sew' on Google images, it seems it is an image used in a lot of websites about hairstyles.

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And of course trend-news.com is a prank website where users can submit their own headline, description and photo to create realistic looking prank news articles. It carries following disclaimer at the bottom of each page:

This website is an entertainment website, news are created by users. These are humourous news, fantasy, fictional, that should not be seriously taken or as a source of information.

Rape and murder could probably be considered humorous fantasy fiction news by some. But fortunately you don't have to take it seriously or as a source of information...

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Users don't even need to upload their own image, there is a built-in search function that will pull an appropriate image from Google image search.

The site is part of a larger network of prank sites all using the same basic layout but sometimes in different languages. It appears to be run by a Belgian company named Mediavibes or Media Vibes which is managed by a man named Nicolas Gouriou according to registration records.

So don't fall for this prank now that we've warned you about it!

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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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