Fake News: Chemotherapy Patient NOT Beaten Up By Antifa Mob After Being Mistaken For Neo-Nazi Skinhead

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Chemotherapy Patient NOT Beaten Up By Antifa Mob After Being Mistaken For Neo-Nazi Skinhead

Did 37-year-old cancer patient Derrick Johnson get beaten up in East Portland after coming out of a chemotherapy session because an Antifa mob mistook him for a neo-nazi? No, that's not true: the story was mde up by a Canadian website that invents tales of bizarre crimes and weird sex acts for entertainment purposes. It did not happen for real.

The story originated from an article published by World News Daily Report on October 20, 2018 titled "Chemotherapy patient beaten up by Antifa mob after being mistaken for Neo-Nazi skinhead" (archived here) which opened:

A 37-year-old chemotherapy patient was savagely beaten by what he describes as an "Antifa mob" as he was escorted by his 74-year-old mother in a wheelchair out of the hospital.

Derrick Johnson, 37, who has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer had just undergone his third session of chemotherapy at the Providence Cancer Center in East Portland when the attack occurred.

Only moments after exiting the hospital, he and his mother were separated by a mob of protesters dressed in black as he was thrown off of his wheelchair and onto the street asphalt.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail, leading many to think it was real:

Chemotherapy patient beaten up by Antifa mob after being mistaken for Neo-Nazi skinhead

A 37-year-old chemotherapy patient was savagely beaten by what he describes as an "Antifa mob" as he was escorted by his 74-year-old mother in a wheelchair out of the hospital. Derrick Johnson, 37, who has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer had just undergone his third session of chemotherap

However the image of the cancer patient seems to be taken from a 2010 blog posts where somebody describes their experience with high dose chemo:

MrbLOB9000

some images taken during the high dose chemo that I've been meaning to post but haven't previously. my legs a few days after the initial kidney failure and the blisters formed. They were still 'wheeping' I think they called it, at this point but they were all popped by this time.

And the image of the beatdown seems to come from a riot video taken during a protest:

The website World News Daily Report is a well known satire website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:

World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.

It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.

Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.

We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.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