False claim about NFL national anthem protest originated as satire
- Published on August 20, 2024 at 19:48
- 4 min read
- By AFP USA
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"NFL Referees were given the authority to disqualify players for anthem kneeling. So far they've tossed five of them," says an August 17, 2024 Facebook post.
The post and nearly identical claims have circulated on several other Facebook pages and Threads accounts, receiving tens of thousands of interactions.
"Good and they should put them out!!! men and woman are fighting for them to make millions of dollars and they can't show them some kind of respect!" one comment says.
"If you don't respect the flag and what it stands for, leave the country," says another.
The posts reference controversy over the protest movement that started in 2016 when then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem. Kaepernick said his decision came after years of witnessing and experiencing racial oppression.
The protests drew both praise and criticism from fans, sparking a culture war that former president Donald Trump used to bolster his 2016 campaign.
Keyword searches show the claim that referees have ejected players during the 2024 season comes from the Dunning-Kruger Times.
"Everything on this website is fiction," the satire site says on its "About Us" page (archived here).
Other fact-checking organizations debunked the claim when it circulated in 2023.
Stolen satire
Some of the Facebook posts are clearly labeled as satire while others are not -- an example of what the News Literacy Project calls "stolen satire," or "a satirical story that is removed from its original context and presented online without an immediately apparent disclaimer."
A logo for America's Last Line of Defense, a network of parody websites, appears in the upper right-hand corner of some of the images shared online.
Christopher Blair, founder of America's Last Line of Defense, told AFP in 2020 that "confirmation bias" causes people to share the content he creates.
"The truth is no longer important to them," he said. "All they care about is holding on to their hate and fear."
AFP has reported on dozens of false claims that trace back to Blair's sites.
NFL policy
In 2018, NFL team owners approved a rule requiring players to stand for the anthem or wait in the locker room. Teams and individuals who did not comply could be fined.
But the NFL Players Association union filed a grievance and the policy was not widely enforced. In June 2020, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league was wrong not to listen to players protesting systemic racism.
The NFL rulebook for 2024 does not mention the national anthem (archived here). AFP found no reports of players being ejected for protesting during the 2024 pre-season, either.
The picture in the posts is also not recent.
A reverse image search found the same screenshot in the thumbnail for a YouTube video published October 11, 2022 (archived here). It features a clip of Buffalo Bills player AJ Epenesa getting ejected from an October 9 game for contact with a referee.
AFP contacted the NFL for comment, but a response was not forthcoming.
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