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Hoax Alert

Fake News: Ihlan Omar Did NOT Propose Nationwide Ban on 'Unhealthy and Immoral' Bacon

  • by: Maarten Schenk
  • (Wed, 12 Jun 2019 14:53:18 Z)

Did Ihlan Omar propose a nationwide ban on bacon because it is 'unhealthy and immoral'? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to educate gullible Trump supporters and Republicans about the need to actually click and read links before sharing or liking them in order to avoid being embarrassed by fans of the site later. All the events described in the article are not real. Despite that the story got copied by several fake news sites that try to milk ad dollars out of an unsuspecting audience.

The story originated from an article (archived here) published by Daily World Update under the title "Ihlan Omar Proposes Nationwide Ban on 'Unhealthy and Immoral' Bacon". It opened:

Newly elected Congresswoman Ihlan Omar has proposed a nationwide ban on something...unheard of. Bacon. The pork product bagel sandwiches are built on. The staple of the American soldier, and the most recognizable smell at Shoney's breakfast buffet.

Ihlan Omar wants to take your bacon away. She says it's for our own good; that our health depends on it. She also says the way we keep and slaughter pigs is immoral and needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, we know that this is just another case of Musslamic Shakira Law in action. The Quaran says:

"Only the American Infidel Eats Bacon, and he Shall Pay the Ultimate Price Before Allahu."

Screenshot of https://dailyworldupdate.us/ihlan-omar-proposes-nationwide-ban-on-unhealthy-and-immoral-bacon/

To people on social media the story would have looked like this:

Ihlan Omar Proposes Nationwide Ban on 'Unhealthy and Immoral' Bacon

Newly elected Congresswoman Ihlan Omar has proposed a nationwide ban on something...unheard of. Bacon. The pork product bagel sandwiches are built on. The staple of the American soldier, and the most recognizable smell at Shoney's breakfast buffet. Ihlan Omar wants to take your bacon away.

But it was published under the category "Hot Potato, Scary Musslamics and Satrical Shakira Law" and it contains several words that sound vaguely Islamic but aren't ("Shakira Law", "Quaran", "Musslamic"...).

The site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run byself-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. Blair has been in a feud with fact checking website Snopes for some time now and has also criticized other fact checkers in the past who labeled his work "fake news" instead of satire. In reaction to this he has recently rebranded all his active websites and Facebook pages so they carry extremely visible disclaimers everywhere.

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 who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up. No different with this story, which was promptly copied by a Macedonian fake news website:

Ihlan Omar Proposes Nationwide Ban on 'Unhealthy and Immoral' Bacon

Newly elected Congresswoman Ihlan Omar has proposed a nationwide ban on something...unheard of. Bacon. The pork product bagel sandwiches are built on. The staple of the American soldier, and the most recognizable smell at Shoney's breakfast buffet. Ihlan Omar wants to take your bacon away.

Blair and his operation were profiled by the Washington Post on November 17, 2018 by Eli Saslow:

'Nothing on this page is real': How lies become truth in online America

November 17 The only light in the house came from the glow of three computer monitors, and Christopher Blair, 46, sat down at a keyboard and started to type. His wife had left for work and his children were on their way to school, but waiting online was his other community, an unreality where nothing was exactly as it seemed.

If you are interested in learning more about Blair and the history of his sites, here is something to get you started:

The Ultimate Christopher Blair and America's Last Line of Defense Reading List | Lead Stories

STORY UPDATED: check for updates below. Yesterday Eli Saslow at the Washington Post wrote a fantastic article about Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has been trolling conservatives and Trump supporters online for years and occasionally even made a living out of it.

If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.

About the author:

Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

About Lead Stories

Lead Stories uses the Trendolizer™ engine to detect the most trending stories from known fake news, satire and prank websites and tries to debunk them as fast as possible. Read more about how we work and how we select stories to check here.

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