Fake news website The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense published a story on february 19th 2017 titled "BREAKING: Mexico Agrees To Pay For The Wall". This is not actually true.
The story opens:
Mark this day down in your history books. At just after 6:30 AM Eastern, President Donald Trump finalized the beginnings of a deal that will see a 30 foot tall by 3 foot wide solid concrete wall along the entirety of the border between Mexico and the United States. Once the deal is signed, the wall's construction will begin and should be completed within 2 years.
Trump made it happen not by appealing to Mexico's government but to its economy. In an early morning meeting at Mar-a-Lago, 4 Mexican industrialists agreed to split the cost of the wall between them, meaning that Trump was right all along: The Mexicans will pay for the wall. According to the White House Information and Propaganda Office:
In return for for some industrial leverage and a guarantee against additional tarrifs against their businesses, four top-ranked Mexican companies, El Nortonia, La Dima del Vintere, Montenegro and Dos Equis ITL will split the cost of the US-Mexico border wall equally. Each company will provide $7.3 billion to the US Treasury general fund before the beginning of the third quarter of 2107.
First off, there is no "White House Information and Propaganda Office", it simply does not exist (Google it).
Second, The Resistance: The Last Line of Defence includes this disclaimer on their 'about' page:
DISCLAIMER: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that don't necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real.
Third, no other media are reporting the story and Donald Trump has not made mention of it on his Twitter account. One would think he'd be the first to tweet about this, even before the Mexican industrialists left his office...
Despite the complete lack of proof people are sharing the story anyhow as you can see in the Trendolizer graph at the end of this article. If you notice anyone spreading the rumor around you can help by pointing them to this article here because nobody likes fake news.
