Did Texas ban Pride flags in school classrooms as of December 16, 2024? No, that's not true: This originated from SpaceX Fanclub, a Facebook page with a satire disclaimer: "We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real." The first comment under the post included a link to the self-described satire website esspots.com.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on September 8, 2024. It opened:
It's Official: Texas Declares Bringing a Pride Flag to the Classroom a Crime...Satire Post
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of this writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Dec 16 19:11:10 2024 UTC)
The caption on the image clearly states "Satire," and the Facebook page that posted it, SpaceX Fanclub, is self-described as a "Satire/Parody" page with an intro that reads:
We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real.
The first comment under the post contains a link to the article labeled as satire (archived here) on the website esspots.com. At the top of the article, the word "SATIRE" is visible twice, as shown in a screenshot of the website below:
(Source: Esspots.com screenshot taken on Mon Dec 16 21:58:30 2024 UTC)
Esspots' "About Us" page (archived here) has a clear disclaimer that, at the time of this publication, read:
Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America. Our team of writers and editors is dedicated to bringing you the latest and greatest in fake news and absurdity, all with a healthy dose of humor and satire.
Lead Stories has a Satire Policy published that explains when we fact check satire and when we don't:
What do we consider not to be satire?
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, Reuters, FullFact and USA Today had reviewed the same claim.
Read more
Lead Stories has debunked other claims made by Esspots, which can be read here.
Other Lead Stories fact checks involving LGBTQ+ people and issues here.
