A fake news article was posted on inquirer.local-reports.com on January 25th 2017 reporting that President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will allow all 'Asian nationals' to travel to the United States without visas.
The part of the article concerned with immigration goes like this:
The new order, serving as a change in visa policy for Asians traveling to the United States, would permit Asia nationals stay in the U.S for a maximum period of 180 days for Tourism or Business purposes only. Stay over 180 days would therefore require a visa.
Trump says this measure is to strengthen trade between the United States and Asia. "Asia is my greatest bet for Trade and Economic growth" - Trump said.
It has emerged that trade and bilateral visa deals were the center of discussion when Japan's Prime Minister visited Donald Trump few days after winning the elections.
This part of the article is completely false (but note that the rest of the article talks about several other executive orders Trump has actually signed). The U.S. Embassy in Malaysia already put out a statement regarding this fabricated piece of 'news':
A fabricated news report has been circulating in local media regarding visa-free travel to the United States. The report claims that President Trump signed an executive order allowing Asian nationals to travel to the United States without a visa. This report is false and unsubstantiated.
If you have further questions, please contact the U.S. Embassy at (03) 2168-5000.
Besides this, the use of the term 'Asia nationals' would be a huge tip-off that the article is not true. There is no country called 'Asia', only a continent, and it encompasses such diverse countries as China, Turkey, Russia, Vietnam, Japan, Iran, Afghanistan and the Phillipines. It would seem very unlikely that U.S. visa policy would be made identical toward such a large group of nations.
But that didn't stop a large number of people from sharing this fake news online anyway, as this Trendolizer graph below this article shows:
