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A Ridiculous Story Went Viral In Malta And Pretty Much No One Noticed It Was Fake News

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A satirical story about two Spanish altar boys who had replaced incense with some weed in a church has gone viral in Catholic Malta – even though it’s 100% fake.

You’ve probably already seen the article – either the original English version or an adapted Malted version – and you might have even laughed at the obvious satire.

However, the fake story – which featured dead giveaways such as a quote from the altar boys saying they had only bought “half a kilo of Mary Jane” after getting the idea during a Christmas Eve mass, alongside a multitude of grammatical errors – was widely shared on Maltese social media, with one Maltese news portal re-reporting it in Maltese and quickly going viral.

One Maltese website garnered over 230 shares in just a few hours

Screenshot 2018 12 05 At 17 06 35

Pictured: Maltese people an hour after they’ve shared the article

To be fair, the world has become so absurd anything is pretty much believable nowadays

And let’s face it; we’ve all heard of a crazy abbatini story or two before. Although to be fair, it could also be a matter of so many people just wanting this to be real.

That said, a cursory glance at the other related stories would have been more than enough for most to realise it was fake – titles like “Pope Francis cancels The Bible and proposes to create a new book” might have given most a bit of a hint.

And, if anyone should be doing a bit of fact checking, you’d think it’d be news portals, right?

Tag someone who believed the story

READ NEXT: 6 Times Malta Fell Victim To Fake News

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]

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