Fake news website published a story titled "Senator Rubio: If God Wants the Climate to Change, We Must Let It" dated May 12th 2014 which recently started trending again according to Leadstories' Trendolizer engine. Rubio made no such comment in reality. The story opens:
WASHINGTON - Republican Senator Marco Rubio (FL), a prominent Christian and noted skeptic of climate change science, yesterday argued that Americans should resist efforts by the federal government to curb carbon dioxide emissions. Sen. Rubio, who is a likely candidate for president in 2016, said that such programs would be "against God's Will," since "for all we know, God wants the Earth to get warmer."
Speaking at a luncheon with potential donors, Rubio admitted that "it's getting more and more difficult to deny that the Earth is getting hotter--just look at the new NASA report."
It also includes following fake Marco Rubio quote:
"So yeah, I don't deny it's happening," Rubio said. "But what we absolutely cannot say for sure is that a warming Earth is not just part of God's plan," Rubio explained. "God knows what He's doing, and it pleases Him to see half of Manhattan underwater and Miami wiped out completely, then we cannot stand in His way."
Politicops is part of a network of fake news websites under the 'Newslo' brand that calls itself a hybrid News/Satire platform according to their about page:
JUST ENOUGH NEWS... Newslo is the first hybrid News/Satire platform on the web. Readers come to us for a unique brand of entertainment and information that is enhanced by features like our fact-button, which allows readers to find what is fact and what is satire.
Newslo's "No Need to Satirize" brings you completely factual stories that are so ridiculous, they don't need our trademark touch. Whenever you see #NNTS, you're reading COMPLETELY real news that only seems too absurd to be true.
In practice this means their stories consist partly of facts and partly of made up quotes and events. By clicking a 'Show Facts' or 'Hide Facts' button at the top of an article readers can choose to highlight the factual bits.
When the stories are shared on social media only the title, description and thumbnail image are visible there though without any indication there might be non-factual content present. This leads many people to pass on the stories as factual without first checking the source.
That explains why the story is being shared around widely 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.
