Did a court allow New Jersey siblings James and Victoria Banes to marry after a ten year court battle?No, that's not true: the story was made up by a Canadian entertainment website that makes a living by publishing fictional stories often involving weird crimes, bizarre sex acts or strange accidents. It is not real.
The story originated from an article published by World News Daily Report on August 6, 2019 titled "New Jersey brother and sister allowed to marry after 10-year-long court battle" (archived here) which opened:
A New Jersey brother and sister have won the right to marry after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States.
In a 5-to-4 ruling, five judges unanimously granted the appeal by James Banes, 41, and Victoria Banes, 38, today after a ten-year-long battle.The overjoyed pair said they did it for the 'millions of Americans who have consensual incestuous relationships and who are living in fear' and blasted the Government for wasting taxpayers' money fighting their challenge.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
New Jersey brother and sister allowed to marry after 10-year-long court battle
A New Jersey brother and sister have won the right to marry after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 5-to-4 ruling, five judges unanimously granted the appeal by James Banes, 41, and Victoria Banes, 38, today after a ten-year-long battle. The overjoyed pair said the
But the picture used to illustrate the story actually shows a heterosexual couple in Britain who won the right to get a civil partnership instead of a marriage in 2018:
Heterosexual couple WIN the right to enter a civil partnership
Rebecca Steinfeld, 37, and Charles Keidan, 41, win the right to enter a civil union Heterosexuals are currently not allowed under the Civil Partnership Act 2004 Couple say they are 'victorious' but call for Government to change 'unfair' act Would YOU like to enter a civil partnership?
The website World News Daily Report is a humor website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:
World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.
On March 20, 2019 the site added a new header that included the slogan "Where facts don't matter" to make it clearer to casual visitors the published content is fictional:
The site often uses images stolen without attribution from real news websites, sometimes showing real people who have nothing to do with the story, for example here:
Woman Says Newborn Photo Stolen for Satirical Fake News Story
It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.
Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes worldnewsdailyreport.com as:
A website that publishes hoaxes and made-up stories that are often widely shared and mistaken for news.
According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Amnesiac Man Did NOT Wake From Coma Speaking Only Ancient Hebrew
- Fake News: Kentucky Police Did NOT Shoot White Coal Miner 5 Times Thinking He Was Black
- Fake News: Supreme Court Did NOT Grant Black Man "40 Acres of Land and a Mule"
- Fake News: Mermaid Enthusiast NOT Accidentally Harpooned to Death By Local Fishermen in Philippines
- Fake News: American Tourist NOT Arrested in Saudi Arabia For Refusing To Trade Wife to Prince For 45 Camels
