There is no truth to reports that OJ Simpson is back in custody after being arrested outside a nightclub in "Oxenflood". He also didn't carry a Canadian passport, a pistol, a knife or $400K in cash. How do we know all this? First of all, there is no town called "Oxenflood", not in New York (as the original story claimed) nor anywhere else. You can look it up for yourself on Google Maps. But more importantly, the story originated on a satirical website by the name of Daily World Update where it was published on January 17th 2018 under the title "BREAKING: OJ Simpson Back In Custody" (archived here).
The story opened:
OJ Simpson was arrested late Tuesday evening at a nightclub outside of Oxenflood, New York, just south of a little-known Canadian border crossing upstate. Simpson, who was armed with a pistol and a knife, was carrying a fake Canadian passport and nearly $400K in cash.
It also claimed Simpson was picked up by the New York State Police and brought to the county jail in Fishkill from where he would then be transported back to Nevada. That is also not true, for the same reasons.
The site Daily World Update 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.
If that isn't enough for you, there is also the site's about page:
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical.
You'd have to be really dim to still think the story was real after reading that.
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 ladiesofliberty.net, shareotonin.com and dailyworldupdate.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.
At the time of writing the story hadn't been copied yet by the legion of fake news sites that regularily copy Blair's content but we expect that to happen shortly.
If you are reading this later and you saw the story on a site that did not contain the satire disclaimer you now know what happened. Don't fall for it, don't be fooled, warn others.
