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  • 2015-12-10 (xsd:date)
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  • FALSE: El Chapo Threatens ISIS (en)
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  • On 10 December 2015, a rumor that notorious drug cartel leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman had taunted and threatened to wage war against ISIS was reported by major news outlets such as the Washington Times, the New York Post, Forbes, and Fox News. Despite the story's wide circulation on supposedly reputable news sites, this rumor was nothing more than a piece of fake news that originated on the entertainment web site Thug Life Videos: Although Thug Life Videos originally posted their El Chapo article on 30 November 2015, it wasn't until the story was picked up by CartelBlog.com, a web site for cartel news, that the rumor went viral. Shortly after CartelBlog reposted the story in their blog, several major news outlets published information from the spoof article under headlines such as El Chapo Tells ISIS His Men Will Destroy Them and Cartel Leader Chapo Guzmán Threatens War on ISIS After Terrorists Destroy Drug Shipment. But Joaquin El Chapo Guzmán has not threatened to wage war against ISIS. The rumor started on a satirical web site that frequently publishes fake articles, was mistakenly picked up as a genuine news item by a web site that specializes in information about the cartel, and was then regurgitated by multiple other online news outlets. This isn't the first time that Thug Life Videos has fooled the media with a story about El Chapo. In October 2015, the web site helped promulgate the false story that El Chapo had put a bounty on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's head. A disclaimer on the site explains that while Thug Life Video's main focus is on creating and sharing videos and entertainment news, they occasionally publish satire: Steve Charnock, who works for Thug Life Videos, confirmed to us he was the author of this fictional but now-viral news piece: ISIS released a video in November 2015 listing 60 countries as their enemies, and Mexico was the only Latin American country on the list. Their video was met with mockery from social media users in Mexico, but no threats from cartel bosses. [article-meta] (en)
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