Real News: Man Arrested For Going To Parks And Telling Kids Where Children Come From

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Real News: Man Arrested For Going To Parks And Telling Kids Where Children Come From

Was a 30-year-old Florida man named Otis Dawayne Ryan arrested for telling kids at a playground where babies come from? That's actually true: even though the story appeared on a site that regularily invents stories about bizarre crimes and sex acts and calls it "fauxtire" (a contraction of "faux" and "satire") it did happen for real.

The story appeared in an article published by Huzlers on May 29, 2018 titled "Man Arrested For Going To Parks And Telling Kids Where Children Come From" (archived here) which opened:

FLORIDA - Clearwater Beach Police say a Florida man climbed on top of playground equipment and yelled a vulgar explanation of where babies come from as children played.

An officer said he watched 30-year-old Otis Dawayne Ryan climb on top of a piece of equipment where children were playing Sunday and start shouting that babies come out of women. The officer said Ryan used inappropriate language. Parents rushed to remove their children from the busy playground.

The basic facts of the story were reported by NBC Miami on May 22, 2018:

Police: Fla. Man Vulgarly Told Kids Where Babies Come From

Authorities say a Florida man climbed on top of playground equipment and yelled a vulgar explanation of where babies come from as the children played. An officer said he watched 30-year-old Otis Dawayne Ryan climb on top of a piece of equipment where children were playing Sunday in Clearwater and start shouting that babies come out of women.

Huzlers styles itself as a "fauxtire" website and carries a disclaimer at the bottom of each page:

Huzlers.com is the most infamous fauxtire & satire entertainment website in the world. If it's trending on social media you'll find it here!

Normally they publish fake stories but in this case it seems they made an exception.

According to Splinter News the site is run by Pablo Reyes and David Martinez and according to Buzzfeed Reyes is involved with several other fake news websites. They tend to shy away from political stories, opting instead to write for a more "urban" audience, with stories about rappers, criminals and celebrities.

We wrote about huzlers.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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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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