Did the United States Marine Corps start recalling Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve to rejoin the ranks of the 2nd Marine Division? No, that's not true: some joker put a notice about it on a prank website that allows anyone to upload a headline, image and short text in order to fool friends and family. Despite the story being just a joke, it got shared over 5,000 times on Facebook so far and attracted over 30,000 reactions.
The claim originated from an article published by channel45news.com on January 4, 2020, titled "2ND Marine Division to begin recalling IRR Marines - Channel 45 News" (archived here) which opened:
With the heightened tensions with the ongoing conflict in Iraq , top Marine Corps generals chose to start recalling all IRR Marines who recently separated from the Marine Corps. Marimes who recently separated from 2016 through 2017 will be the first chosen to be activated. A 2 month combat readiness course will be competed at ...
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
2ND Marine Division to begin recalling IRR Marines - Channel 45 News
With the heightened tensions with the ongoing conflict in Iraq , top Marine Corps generals chose to start recalling all IRR Marines who recently separated from the Marine Corps. Marimes who recently separated from 2016 through 2017 will be the first chosen to be activated. A 2 month combat readiness course will be competed at ...
Several other versions of the "prank" were also circulating on the site, some mentioning the U.S. Navy instead of the U.S. Marine Corps:
Camp Pendleton Recalls First of Many IRR Marines - Channel 45 News
With the heightened tensions with the ongoing conflict in Iraq, top Marine Corps generals chose to start recalling all IRR Marines who recently separated from the Marine Corps. Marimes who recently separated from 2016 through 2017 will be the first chosen to be activated. A two month combat readiness course will be competed at SOI ...
Navy to recall veteran's who ETS'd between 2012-2019 - Channel 45 News
Navy to recall veteran's who ETS'd between yea I'm bullshitting #legit
USNR recalls 50,000 IRR & USN Issues Over 30,000 Mandatory Extensions - Channel 45 News
WASHINGTON - Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Michael R. Gilday, announced late Saturday evening that the United States Naval Reserve (USNR) would be recalling over some 50,000 inactive ready reserve (IRR) sailors to active duty as well as more than 30,000 active duty enlisted sailors having their contracts mandatorily extended upwards of 12 months.
The site is part of a network of prank sites operated by Korry Scherer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to WHOIS data. The site lets visitors create their own realistic-looking fake news stories to prank friends and family.
The site seems to be part of a network of similar sites. So far, we've found these, but there may be others:
- channel22news.com
- channel23news.com
- channel24news.com
- channel28news.com
- channel33news.com
- channel34news.com
- channel40news.com
- channel45news.com
- channel46news.com
The sites all come with disclaimers at the bottom of each prank:
We do NOT support FAKE NEWS!!! This is a Prank website that is intended for Fun. Bullying, Violent Threats or posts that Violate Public Order are NOT permitted on this Website.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes channel45news.com as:
A website that lets users make up stories and headlines that mimic real news and share them on social media.
According to NewsGuard, the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
We wrote about channel45news.com before. Here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
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