Is the police in Dearborn, Michigan now arresting Christian carol singers after a "muslamic fallah" called 911 on them? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to educate gullible Trump supporters and Republicans about the need to actually click and read links before sharing or liking them in order to avoid being embarrassed by fans of the site later. All the events described in the article are not real.
The story originated from an article published on December 16, 2018 titled "BREAKING: Muslamic Fallah Calls Cops On Christian Carolers, Cops Arrest Them And Take Their Kids" (archived here) which opened:
It's the Christmas season, but you wouldn't know that in Dearborn, Michigan. A group of Christian carolers were trying to spread cheer on Saturday when they were met with a shocking and horrifying surprise: a Muslamic Fallah called the police.
According to the Dearborn Gazette-Intelligencer-Reporter, the Fallah reported the group of six Christians -- which included three children, their mother, their father, and their pastor -- for "religious harassment." Police arrived and arrested them -- not for the reason they were called, but for "littering" because one of the children accidentally dropped a song sheet on the ground.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
BREAKING: Muslamic Fallah Calls Cops On Christian Carolers, Cops Arrest Them And Take Their Kids
It's the Christmas season, but you wouldn't know that in Dearborn, Michigan. A group of Christian carolers were trying to spread cheer on Saturday when they were met with a shocking and...
There is no surch thing as a "Muslamic fallah" and there are several indications the story is satire (such as the notice in the header of the site that reads "Information you probably shouldn't trust" and the category the article was published in, which read "As Real as the War on Christmas").
There is also no publication called the "Dearborn Gazette-Intelligencer-Reporter" (the link behind those words in the original story goes to an article at Scary Mommy about why people think some Christians are a**holes).
The photo used to illustrate the story was actually taken in the summer of 2014 and shows people being arrested after celebrating a soccer victory a bit too exuberantly:
Hyannis Kids Arrested Celebrating World Cup Victory On Car Roof Waving Flag - The Real Cape
HyannisNews.com - Sometimes cops want to ask young adults "what in the Wide World of Sports were you just thinking?" Last night was one of those situations, where police received a call about a black Audi driving around downtown Hyannis with ...
The site 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.
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, including potatriotpost.us, dailyworldupdate.us and nofakenewsonline.us. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". A second man working on the sites is John Prager as revealed in this earlier story we wrote.
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.
Blair and his operation were profiled by the Washington Post on November 17, 2018 by Eli Saslow:
'Nothing on this page is real': How lies become truth in online America
November 17 The only light in the house came from the glow of three computer monitors, and Christopher Blair, 46, sat down at a keyboard and started to type. His wife had left for work and his children were on their way to school, but waiting online was his other community, an unreality where nothing was exactly as it seemed.
If you are interested in learning more about Blair and the history of his sites, here is something to get you started:
The Ultimate Christopher Blair and America's Last Line of Defense Reading List | Lead Stories
STORY UPDATED: check for updates below. Yesterday Eli Saslow at the Washington Post wrote a fantastic article about Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has been trolling conservatives and Trump supporters online for years and occasionally even made a living out of it.
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.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes wearethellod.com as:
A site that publishes false stories and hoaxes that are often mistaken for real news, part of a network named America's Last Line of Defense run by hoax perpetrator Christopher Blair.
According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
We wrote about wearethellod.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Dearborn Family NOT Evicted or Fined $100K For Christmas Lights
- Fake News: 13 ISIS Members NOT Arrested As Migrant Caravan Hits Santa Recto
- Fake News: Colin Kaepernick NOT Arrested For Domestic Violence
- Fake News: Clinton Foundation NOT Ordered To Cease Operations - Chelsea NOT Charged With Fraud
- Fake News: Kid Rock, Ted Nugent Did NOT Raise More Than $10 Million to Fight the War on Christmas
