Fake News: Man Doing 'Bird Box Challenge' Did NOT Get Jumped And Mugged In Hood

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Man Doing 'Bird Box Challenge' Did NOT Get Jumped And Mugged In Hood

Did a man named Anthony Hanes participating in the #BirdBoxChallenge try to go around blindfolded in a bad neighbourhood and did he get jumped and robbed? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a site that publishes invented stories about weird crimes, strange sex acts and other odd events but purely for entertainment purposes. It is not real.

The story originated from an article published by Huzlers on January 2, 2019 titled "Man Doing 'Bird Box Challenge' Gets Jumped And Mugged In Hood #BirdBoxChallenge" (archived here) which opened:

Netflix's new horror film "Bird Box" has people online attempting a new kind of challenge: going around blindfolded. The movie has spawned the internet sensation known as the #BirdBoxChallenge, with some people poking fun at the film.

Anthony Hanes tried to do the challenge himself and ended up in a drug dealing neighbor hood know robberies. Anthony says all he remembers is someone screaming "WORLD STAR!!" as he was attacked and robbed by criminals. No one has yet been arrested but Anthony Hanes told police he knew it was a bad idea.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Man Doing 'Bird Box Challenge' Gets Jumped And Mugged In Hood #BirdBoxChallenge

Netflix's new horror film "Bird Box" has people online attempting a new kind of challenge: going around blindfolded. The movie has spawned the internet sensation known as the #BirdBoxChallenge, with some people poking fun at the film. Anthony Hanes tried to do the challenge himself and ended up in a drug dealing neighbor hood know ...

The image used to illustrate the story seems to be taken from a video that has been circulating the internet since at least 2012, years before the movie "Bird Box" came out.

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!

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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