Did President Trump file a lawsuit to have George Soros deported from the country? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to fool Trump supporters and Republicans into sharing made up stories that are clearly marked as satire when you actually click them. Articles from the site are frequently copied by foreign-run fake news websites. The people liking and sharing these stories are enriching foreign website operators (or a liberal from Maine) via the ad revenue generated with the content which is probably not what they expected or wanted.
The story originated from an article published by Daily World Update on August 5, 2019 titled "Trump Files Lawsuit To Deport George Soros" (archived here) which opened:
Citing his crimes against humanity in World War Two, his consistent manipulation of world markets to further enrich himself, and his continued assault on the values of the average American, President Donald Jabroni Trump has initiated proceedings to further a lawsuit aimed at having evil, villainous, omniscient, criminal mastermind George Soros, deported from the United States back to his native European country that changes depending on which ever-trustworthy "journalistic source" tells the story of his life, and here he shared a few thoughts on the matter:
"George Snuffaluffagus Soros has spent decades terrorizing the world with his forced economic policy on lesser nations than ours, his manipulation of world money markets to satisfy his lusty greed, his opposition to powerful, magnificent governments such as my own, and his construction of coups to dethrone the rich, powerful, and vicious despots installed by America throughout the world, all of which has come together in a pattern reminiscent of past treasonous activities from past traitors, and so we have decided to act by having this horrible, disgusting piece of human excrement deported from these United States of America through a lawsuit filed today."
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Trump Files Lawsuit To Deport George Soros
Citing his crimes against humanity in World War Two, his consistent manipulation of world markets to further enrich himself, and his continued assault on the values of the average American, Preside...
The story was posted under the category "Satire and/or Conservative Fan Fiction, Spooky Scary Soros Conspiracy Satire" and sported multiple satire disclaimers besides being stuffed to the gills with hints that the story was not true ("Donald Jabroni Trump", really?). Despite this the story was readily copied by several sites (likely foreign run) that presented it as news.
The site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run byself-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. Blair has been in a feud with fact checking website Snopes for some time now and has also criticized other fact checkers in the past who labeled his work "fake news" instead of satire. In reaction to this he has recently rebranded all his active websites and Facebook pages so they carry extremely visible disclaimers everywhere.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":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.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
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.
Here is a video of Blair explaining how his process works:
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 dailyworldupdate.us as:
A news site that publishes false stories and hoaxes that are often mistaken for real news. The site is part of a network 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 dailyworldupdate.us before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Ihlan Omar Did NOT Propose Nationwide Ban on 'Unhealthy and Immoral' Bacon
- Fake News: Malia Obama NOT Arrested Again, NO Complete Media Blackout
- Fake News: Governor's Conference Did NOT Vote 32-18 to Impeach Nancy Pelosi
- Fake News: Pelosi Did NOT Insult Melania, Did NOT Call Her 'The Hired Help Wife'
- Fake News: Ocasio-Cortez And Omar Did NOT Vow To Remove Senior's 'Entitlements', Social Security/Medicare
