Is THIS celebrity moving to THAT town? Hoaxes spread online

The latest trend in the fake news arena involves claiming that a well-known A-list celebrity has just announced they are moving to a relatively unknown suburban town or city.

Fake news articles masquerading an “entertainment” have been around for a number of years now, and we’ve dubbed them fauxtire, since many of them claim to be satirical in nature without any evidence of satire.

They’re actual aim – of course – isn’t to entertain, but to fool. Fool you into sharing them with your friends and thus help the site increase its traffic where they can then convert that traffic into cash via the many sponsored advertisements they no doubt have displayed throughout their made-up articles.

Occasionally many of these sites will look for new ways to trick people. And the latest trend being used is to falsely claim a certain celebrity is moving to a town near you! A network of websites that have sprung up in early 2016 have published a near-endless series of articles quoting many different celebrities and their apparently imminent moves to various suburban locations across the United States and Canada (and even the UK!).

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Recent examples include –

Justin Bieber moving to Sandy in Oregon.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie moving to Berea in Kentucky.
Leonardo DiCaprio moving to Guildford in Surrey, UK
Matt Damon moving to Omaha in Nebraska
Scarlett Johansson moving to Henderson in Nevada
Rihanna moving to Novi, in Michigan
Justin Bieber (again) moving to Visalia in California
Lady Gaga moving to Passaic in New Jersey
Clint Eastwood moving to Newton in Massachusetts

There are more. Many more. None of them are true. This network of fake news websites – including localnews33.com, mckenziepost.com, alynews.com, mbynews.com and kspm33.com – do contain disclaimers outing them as “satirical”, but they are on a separate ‘About Us’ page, where most people are not going to look.

For the last few months these fake stories have been going viral, with many people falling for them, despite them using the same tired techniques of duping people we’ve been seeing for a number of years now.

Get your news from reputable media! Whether it’s national or local. Pick your favourite online news outlets and stick with them and don’t rely on websites you’ve never heard of to get your news!

You can keep on top of these fake stories by liking our sister site ThatsFake.com that keeps on top of viral fake news.