Fake News: NO Three Democrat Senators Busted Running Underage Prostitution Ring

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

A story about thee Democrat senators getting busted for running an "underage" or "kiddie" prostitution ring is not true. It originated on two satirical websites that frequently get used as a source by "real" fake news sites who steal the content and remove the satire labels or disclaimers and (less often) the hints found in the stories themselves. The orignal articles on "Ladies of Liberty" and "Potatriot Post" were titled:

The state senators named in the article ("Sherat, Longwell and Mackelroy") don't actually exist, they don't figure on the list of New Jersey state senators that you can check here. There also is no fuction named "Democrat Party Chair for The Northeast" in the Democrat party as confirmed by a quick Google search.

The stories contain a quote supposedly from Governor Chris Christie's office but the link points to following image:

Both sites comes with a clear satire disclaimer at the bottom of each article:

sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.

ring.jpg

The owner and main writer of the site is self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He runs several other websites such as asamericanasapplepie.org, ourlandofthefree.com and freedumjunkshun.com. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". He has at least one accomplice who writes under the pen names "Freedom", "Captain Jellypants", "Butch Mannington" or "Captain Buck Atlantis".

Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up and he keeps knocking them down. We admire him for his tenacity and we sympathize because our content also gets stolen or plagiarized now and then.

If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also 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

Maarten Schenk is the co-founder and COO/CTO of Lead Stories and an 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.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization EFCSN Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


WhatsApp Tipline

Have a tip or a question? Chat with our friendly robots on WhatsApp!

Add our number +1 (404) 655-4223, follow this link or scan the image below with your phone:

@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion