Fake News: NO Three Democrat Senators Busted Running Underage Prostitution Ring

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

A story about thee Democrat senators getting busted for running an "underage" or "kiddie" prostitution ring is not true. It originated on two satirical websites that frequently get used as a source by "real" fake news sites who steal the content and remove the satire labels or disclaimers and (less often) the hints found in the stories themselves. The orignal articles on "Ladies of Liberty" and "Potatriot Post" were titled:

The state senators named in the article ("Sherat, Longwell and Mackelroy") don't actually exist, they don't figure on the list of New Jersey state senators that you can check here. There also is no fuction named "Democrat Party Chair for The Northeast" in the Democrat party as confirmed by a quick Google search.

The stories contain a quote supposedly from Governor Chris Christie's office but the link points to following image:

Both sites comes with a clear satire disclaimer at the bottom of each article:

sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.

ring.jpg

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 freedumjunkshun.com. 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 and he keeps knocking them down. We admire him for his tenacity and we sympathize because our content also gets stolen or plagiarized now and then.

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.

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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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