Hoax Alert: Obama DID NOT Sign Executive Order Relocating Congress to Guantánamo

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

Panic among lawmakers! What do you pack when you suddenly have to move to sunny Cuba because the president ordered it? And will there be a Starbucks near the new congressional accomodation? Fortunately for all those senators and lawmakers, the executive order relocating Congress to Guantánamo exists only in the imagination of the Borowitz Report, a satirical column in The New Yorker. The real President Obama did not sign any such executive order, and he did not call it a "win-win for America".

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But when the article is shared online, the only part people get to see on Facebook, Twitter etc. looks like this:

Obama Signs Executive Order Relocating Congress to Guantánamo - The New Yorker

That 'The New Yorker' byline gives it just that tiny bit of credibility needed to get people to share the news without checking the source. And indeed, it seems like many people did just that (or they were just testing how gullible their friends were):


  Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk is the co-founder and COO/CTO of Lead Stories and an 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.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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