In the Fake News

Riot Flavour Soup

It’s unsurprising that some of the strangest of fake news can come right from the man who popularised the term in 2016. According to a video that surfaced in late August, the US President Donald Trump was seen telling reporters that protestors in America’s cities were not using bricks to throw – but soup cans. As of writing, many organisations have denounced the President’s claims that protestors were throwing soup at the police – there has been no evidence that this is true – though Twitter did come out with puns a-plenty when the video gained traction in the wake of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin after the shooting of Jacob Blake.

Can she be Vice-President?

Staying with the United States – the announcement of California Senator Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s VP selection prompted right-wing media to go into meltdown and quickly make up claims that Harris was ineligible to run for the highest office in the land. Fox News quickly touted the theory that Harris – who has a Jamaican father and Indian mother – was not born in the US and so was unable to run for VP. The one snag? Harris has been a California senator for two years – and to run for that office, an individual must be a legal citizen.

The Party Hand Sanitiser

Would you believe that vodka can have the same effect as hand sanitiser? Hopefully not – because it’s not true. But, according to a YouGov poll, 23% of British people believe that vodka can be used as a substitute to traditional hand sanitiser. The current advice is that only sanitisers with alcohol content of over 60% can kill off bacteria – which has clearly led some to believe that their favourite tipple could help clean their hands if there isn’t a sink nearby.

Nintendo Planned Covid-19

Though this particular fake news story gained little traction, some people were convinced that the tech giant had deliberately coincided the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in March with the start of the global pandemic. Of course, it’s impossible that Nintendo would have known about a deadly disease that would overwhelm the country in advance – though some conspiracy theorists believe that the video game was just a little too well timed with stay at home orders in Europe and North America.

Giant Food Sweeps Europe

The alleged Wembley Stadium Lasagne caught a huge amount of social media buzz when rumours began swirling in April – but the UK wasn’t the only country believed to be making giant food on the sly. Suggestions of a giant garlic bread being baked in the Channel Tunnel between England and France and salad being tossed in Rome’s famous Colosseum also found their way onto social media.