Fact Check

Sean Hannity to be Fired for Comments About Muslims

A 2014 claim that Fox News host Sean Hannity was getting fired began to make the rounds again in June 2016.

Published June 14, 2016

 (Flickr)
Image courtesy of Flickr
Claim:
Fox News host was about to be fired in June 2016 over comments he made about Muslims.

As fears and rumors about terrorism, radical Islam, and Muslims roiled in the wake of a June 2016 mass shooting in Orlando, the disreputable page American News posted a message on Facebook claiming that Sean Hannity was about to be fired from Fox News over comments he made about Muslims:

american news

While the message shown above was posted on 14 June 2016 along with an urgent call for support (and a request for 20,000 likes), this Facebook post linked to an article published in September 2014. In addition to being outdated, this American News article was published under a sensationalized title and gave a misleading version of events:

Sean Hannity has found himself in hot water after standing up for American values in a heated exchange with a radical Imam in England.

While Hannity did have a heated exchange with Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary in 2014, the Fox News host did not lose his job over the interview.  

Additionally, by asking for "20,000 likes," the American News page on Facebook is openly engaging in "like-farming," which uses headlines designed to outrage or tantalize in order to collect responses from unsuspecting social media users.  Sites often then replace the content with some other unrelated, dubious material in order to bypass Facebook's constraints. It can also be used to spread malicious software.

Whether or not that's the case here, it's exceedingly unlikely that clicking "like" any number of times on a Facebook page would get someone's job reinstated, no matter what the circumstances might be.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sean-hannity-fired-muslims/
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