Greta Thunberg not going on hunger strike until Trump removed
Last updated on: 01 January,2020 10:51 pm
The same misleading report was also exposed as satirical by US fact check site Snopes.
(AFP) - An online article claims that teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is going on hunger strike until US President Donald Trump is removed from office. It has been shared repeatedly in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter. The claim is false; the story originated on a parody website.
The Facebook post was published on December 17, 2019.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:
The article is headlined: “Greta Going on Hunger Strike Until Trump is Removed”. It was published on a website called “News Leno”.
The article reads in part: “At 16, she travels the world, speaking out personally against inaction to global climate change. She famously gave an earful to the gathered United Nations, accusing them uncaringly poisoning her generation. She was just recently named Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year.’ And now, in a show of defiance to fight against who she refers to as : ‘The American face of ignorance and irrationality’, Greta Thunberg is going on a hunger strike until it is confirmed that Donald Trump is removed from the position of President of the United States.”
Below is a screenshot of the misleading article:
The article was shared in Facebook posts; as well as on Twitter.
The same text from the article was also published on a blog on December 18. T
he claim is false; the story originated on a parody website.
The text in the “News Leno” article corresponds with this article published on BustaTroll.org on December 12, 2019, at least five days before the misleading posts emerged.
The text in the two articles is 100 per cent identical, according to this assessment by text comparison tool Copyleaks.
BustaTroll.org explains that “everything on this website is fiction.” The article has also been tagged as “Impeachment Satire.”
Below is a screenshot of the BustaTroll.org article with the same headline:
A keyword search of Thunberg’s tweets on December 31 found she had not made any announcement about going on hunger strike.
The same misleading report was also exposed as satirical by US fact check site Snopes on December 19.