In a video watched tens of thousands of times on social media, a TV interview with an eight-year-old boy identified as Lucas is shown, saying he used his father’s gun to stop a burglar. The clip, which looked like a real morning program interview, has been circulating since 2009 and was created by satirical publisher The Onion.
Some recent posts (here, here) contain a version posted on March 14, 2020 by the Instagram account “For jokes” (see the account in the left corner).
Although some recent repetitions are posted by pages that describe themselves as satire, it seems that some users do not acknowledge that the content is intended as satire, with comments: “Someone should arrest this child immediately” and “See how they child? White privilege, if he were black, the story would have had a different narrative. ‘
A Google search for the words “Today Now” (visible in the banner) led to a television program produced by The Onion (www.imdb.com/title/tt1717499/). The relevant story, titled “Little Boy Heroically Shoots, Mutilates Burglar”, was published on September 23, 2009 (here, here).
As explained by the US Library of Congress www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0008148/, The Onion is an “American satirical company for digital media and newspapers”. In the section about us (www.theonion.com/about) the publisher acknowledges that he uses ‘invented names’ in all his stories, except in cases where public figures are satirized. Any other use of real names is coincidental and incidental. ”
Reuters Fact Check earlier downplayed another story from The Onion that was taken seriously by some users.
VERDICT
Satire. The story of an eight-year-old boy who was interrogated in a “morning program” after using his father’s gun to stop a burglar was intended as satire.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.