Did New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announce there will be no "anthem kneeling" at Gillette Stadium ever again? No, that's not true: This post came from a self-described satirical Facebook account. The website attached to this account has a disclaimer that says, "Nothing on this page is real." Lead Stories could not locate any credible evidence that Kraft made the supposed announcement.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on September 7, 2024. It said:
Thank you, Mr. Kraft!
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Sun Nov 24 23:51:57 2024 UTC)
The image in the post making the claim contains a "Satire" disclaimer at the bottom right. Plus, the account that posted this claim, America's Last Line Of Defense, identifies itself on its About page as "satire/parody."
The intro section of this Facebook account also links to The Dunning-Kruger Times website. That site is part of the America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair.
Blair confirmed in a November 21, 2024, email to Lead Stories that none of the claims published on the ALLOD network are true, writing:
I can confirm that as with all of my content, these posts were all intended as satire with no basis in fact. America's Last Line of Defense has always been a honeypot to attract the American political right so they can be exposed and criticized for the incredibly ignorant comments they leave and their complete inability to think for themselves.
The supposed announcement could not be found on The Kraft Group website (archived here) or the Gillette Stadium website (archived here) through Google queries of them (archived here and here). Gillette Stadium is in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
It was not found on the Gillette Stadium's Facebook (archived here), Instagram (archived here) or X (archived here) accounts either, through searches of X (archived here), Facebook (archived here) and a Google search of its Instagram (archived here).
Further, searches of Google News (archived here) and Google (archived here) did not produce results confirming the claim. If Kraft had made that announcement, it would have been reported by credible media outlets.
Lead Stories reached out to The Kraft Group and will update this story if it receives a response.
ALLOD
Blair, from Maine, runs several websites and Facebook pages with visible satire disclaimers everywhere. They mostly publish made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages. 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 that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue. When fact checkers point this out to the people liking and sharing these copycat stories some of them get mad at the fact checkers instead of directing their anger at the foreign spammers or the liberal satire writers. Others send a polite "thank you" note, which is much appreciated.
What do we consider not to be satire?
Lead Stories has a Satire Policy that explains when we fact check satire and when we don't: Sometimes articles from humor or satire publications are copied by other sites and presented as real. In such cases we will label the copies as "False."
At the time this fact check was written, Snopes also reviewed the same claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning anthem kneeling can be found here; fact checks on claims concerning Christopher Blair can be found here.
