Fake News: Obama NOT Evicted From His DC Mansion

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

The infamous fake news website The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense strikes again, with another fake story titled: "BREAKING: Obama Evicted From His DC Mansion For Breaking One Major Clause In His Lease". The hoax article opens:

Former president and Kenyan traitor Barack Obama and his family have been evicted from the Washington DC mansion they leased to stay close enough to the Trump administration to interfere. The mansion, a 200-year-old historical landmark on the outskirts of town, was costing the taxpayers $20K per month.

It comes complete with a fake quote from Jules Vernon, the supposed owner of the mansion:

"I appreciate that he was the president and thank him for his service and all, but that house is a historical landmark and we demand that our renters keep it in pristine condition. That guy and his family not only put holes in the walls to hang pictures, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the original plaster, he refused to smoke outside. The smell of cigarettes in the house was the last straw. It's inexcusable."

Of course no such quote can be found anywhere on the internet, especially not on the websites of any Fox News affiliates like the false story claims. This should come as no wonder: "The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense" is a well known fake news website that carries following disclaimer on its 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.

The site also tends to include nonsensical phrases or insults hints in the list of "categories" under the article titles:

idiotagain.jpg

It appears to be part of a larger network of sites that all seem to repost the same articles mentioning it as the source but not acknowlediging the satire disclaimer. This causes many people to believe the fake stories especially when they are being shared on social media where even more context is removed and only the title, image and description remain. Sites in the network appear to include:

Meanwhile the story is already 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.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  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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