Fake News: Man NOT Arrested After Selling Farts In Jars Without A Vending License

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

Satire website 8shit.net published an article titled "Man Arrested After Selling Farts In Jars Without A Vending License". The story opened:

Tennessee, USA.-- A man was arrested for selling his own farts in jars, without even having a vending license. The man was caught by the authorities, which asked him if he had permission, and the man couldn't answer.

"He was selling farts from different foods, and with different ages. With around 150 jars, he was selling farts as old as one week", said the police man Gary Cockburn.

Every jar had around 30% fart and 70% air, although he didn't clarify that to his buyers.

"The man didn't have permission to sell those farts, so we seized them", Cockburn stated.

None of it is true. The picture used to illustrate the article is actually Paul Pixley, a school bus driver who allegedly fell asleep at the wheel in 2016. There are several versions of this hoax floating around online but this one suddenly went viral again recently. (The image is somewhat reminiscent of the ones used at fake/satire site World News Daily Report which also uses a random mugshot found online in combination with an abstract background with almost all of its stories.)

farts.jpg

Furthermore, 8shit.net carries a disclaimer on its about page that reads:

8Shit is a satire and humor website.

It contains cutting edge satire on a diverse range of topics.

The website publishes fake news, shocking rumors and reports with incisive sarcasm, and humor.

We also post crazy real news which often sounds too good to be true.

In this case it must have been "cutting edge satire" since it definitely wasn't "crazy real news".

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  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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