Sunday, December 24, 2017
Associated Press
A roundup of some of the most popular, but completely untrue, headlines of last week. None of these stories are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked these out; here are the real facts:
Not real: “FBI executes search warrant at Obama D.C. mansion”
The facts: A story shared widely on pride-of-america this week recirculated a hoax story that quotes unnamed officials as saying the raid at the Obama residence removed dozens of computers, surveillance equipment and “thousands of pounds of paper documents.” FBI spokeswoman Kadia Koroma says the agency never spoke to the organization, which also reported the raid was related to an investigation of the undermining of Donald Trump’s presidency by Obama administration officials. The story is linked to a partial photo of an FBI agent’s jacket carrying boxes, which was taken at an unrelated raid in Dearborn, Mich., in June.
Not real: “Alabama military absentee ballots just came in and ruined Democrats’ day”
The facts: One of several false claims that continued to circulate after the Alabama special election for U.S. Senate said that military votes had tilted the race in favor of Republican Roy Moore. The state announced this week that fewer than 5,000 provisional ballots had been cast in the Dec. 12 race, which would not be enough to overcome Moore’s deficit of around 20,000 votes to Democrat Doug Jones. Other false stories reported that three poll workers had been arrested near Birmingham for allowing thousands of invalid votes to be cast for Jones; state officials said no arrests were made and that the people named in the false accounts did not work at the polls for the Alabama election.
Not real: “Law passed: All child support in the United States will end by beginning of 2018”
The facts: The piece by tmzbreaking, appearing to look like the TMZ entertainment news site, reports that President Donald Trump and U.S. Congress voted to abolish child-support payments as of 2018. This is a payment that the president cannot eliminate by a vote or executive order; they are individual payments set by court orders. The piece recirculated a false story that was first published in September and is connected to a prank news site.