Fake News: Jake Paul NOT Injured In Car Accident, NO 2 Dead

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Jake Paul NOT Injured In Car Accident, NO 2 Dead

Was YouTube star Jake Paul involved in a car accident that cost the lives of two people and did he end up in hospital because of it? No, that's nonsense: that story came from a prank site where anyone can write anything in order to fool friends and coworkers. It did not happen, it was not real

The story originated from a badly written article published on May 5, 2018 on Channel28News titled "Jake Paul Injured car accident 2 dead - Channel 28 News" (archived here) which read:

YouTube star Jake Paul Injured in car accident people say there was a car behind Jake the people in the car was two teenage girls so they got in front Jake then the girls lost control of their car and side then Jake tried to stop but the cars hit him. Jake is in hospital right the passager of the car was found dead and now the the drivers is going to count and having to pay $100,000 for Jakes Lamborghini .

The accident photo is from a real accident that happened in Canada but Jake Paul was not involved:

Lamborghini was driving into oncoming lane before fatal crash, family of injured man says | CBC News

The driver behind the wheel of a powerful supercar was heading into oncoming traffic moments before a fatal crash in Richmond Hill on Sunday, according to the family of a man injured in the horrific collision. CBC Toronto has learned that Katarzyna Tucholska, 32, a passenger in a 2017 blue Lamborghini, was killed in the crash.

The site is part of a network of prank sites operated by 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
  • channel33news.com
  • channel34news.com
  • channel40news.com
  • channel45news.com
  • channel46news.com

The sites all come with disclaimers at the bottom of each prank:

We do NOT support FAKE NEWS!!! This is a Prank website that is intended for Fun. Bullying, Violent Threats or posts that Violate Public Order are NOT permitted on this Website.

We wrote about channel28news.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion