Hoax Alert: Sarah Palin DID NOT Lick A Frozen Flagpole in Iowa, DID NOT Get Stuck

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

Some people will believe just about anything about certain other people, especially if these other people are of a different political persuasion and have a reputation for not being very smart. So it comes as no surprise that when The Daily Currant reported that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin licked a frozen flagpole in Des Moines, Iowa after a political rally and got stuck to it, people were ready to believe and share the news.

Unfortunately for "Dusty Two Sacks" he has been taken in by satirical site The Daily Currant, which specializes in these kinds of stories. Earlier they also reported on a fake Sarah Palin quote ("Native Americans Should Go Back to Nativia.") so it is safest to take anything they write about her with a grain of salt.

The article also reported that people were making fun of the situation on Twitter by using the hashtags #palinpop and #brainfreeze. But no such thing is happening:

At the time of writing, about 3,000 people were taken in by the hoax (or were trying to see which ones of their friends would fall for it):


  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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