80% of black men in Atlanta are Homosexuals, study says
A dubious website is peddling unfounded claims about the percentage of black gay men in Atlanta. A post on viralactions.com, headlined, "80% of black men in Atlanta are Homosexuals, study says," claims that Georgia State University students "began a study assessing the sexuality of the male population of the city with surprising results." The study divided the population into the categories "black, white, Asian, and oreo, then divided them further into heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, and asexual. Upon completion of the study, it was found that 80% of the black men in Atlanta, Georgia are homosexual," said the Jan. 7, 2016 post. Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat online hoaxes. The post also claimed that the percentage of gay black men in Atlanta is expected to be much higher "due to the large amount of men unwilling to openly admit to being anything other than straight in our society." We did not find a Georgia State University study concluding that 80 percent of black men in Atlanta are gay. We did find social media accounts linked to viralactions.com that made it clear that its information is not factual. Viralactions.com’s website doesn’t feature a page describing its mission or who’s behind it, and to anyone visiting the site, there’s no easy way to tell if it’s stories are real or not. But it does link to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts that suggest its content is fake. The website linked to an Instagram page for the username "folksrtalking," with a biographical description claiming to have "3 BILLION satire article views shared & counting from over 50 blogs! You may not know my name but you definitely seen my work if your on the Net! #IZM." Its Twitter page, also for the username @FolksRtalking, said "Folks don't want to be INFORMED they want to be ENTERTAINED. #InfoTainment News at its Finest! #NYC." The Twitter account links to another website, celebtricity.com, which describes itself as "the most notorious fauxtire & satire entertainment website in the world. If it's trending on social media you'll find it here!" Viralactions.com’s Facebook page appears to have been called TmzWorldstar, but is no longer available on the social media network. TmzWorldstar appears to be part of a web of hoax websites recycling and cross-posting fabricated information. Fellow fact-checkers at Snopes.com in February 2016 deemed as false claims that a study found that 80 percent of black men in Georgia were gay. The story debunked by Snopes in 2016 is the same one that has resurfaced on Viralactions.com. Viralactions.com published a story claiming 80 percent of black men in Atlanta are gay, citing a nonexistent Georgia State University study. The claim has circulated for years on websites sharing fake news. We rate viralactions.com’s post Pants on Fire. ' See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com
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