FACT CHECK: Atlantic Article About Pride Weekend Parade Is Not Real
An image shared on Facebook claims to show an article from The Atlantic about a man exposing himself to a child at a Pride weekend parade.
Verdict: False
The article is not real. An Atlantic spokesperson confirmed it is fake.
Fact Check:
Social media users have been sharing an image of an article alleged to be from The Atlantic. The article headline allegedly reads, “At this weekend’s Pride parade, a man exposed his genitals to my 6 year old. She was horrified. Am I raising a bigot?”
This article, though, does not exist. Check Your Fact reviewed The Atlantic’s website and did not find any article matching the one in the Facebook image. A wider internet search also did not yield any results for the alleged article. (RELATED: Did The Leaked Pentagon Documents Show Ukraine Suffered 71,000 Dead?)
“This image is crudely fabricated; it is not a screenshot of an actual Atlantic article. We have published no such thing. We have reported this as fake and as a trademark infringement. For those who are irresponsibly sharing this image: it’s remarkably easy to verify if something is real – or not – by visiting The Atlantic and searching our site,” Anna Bross, a spokesperson for The Atlantic, confirmed to Check Your Fact in an email.
The article in the Facebook image also lacks a byline. The Atlantic usually publishes articles with bylines –such as these examples – and the lack of a byline adds to the dubiousness.
