Over the past couple of days, news of senators being arrested in Arizona has been doing the rounds on social media. However, that is completely incorrect as nothing of that sort has happened. The news with the headline 'Senators Arrested in Arizona: Trump is in Trouble' is nothing but a clickbait intended to trick people to join an online news group.
However, many on social media got confused after coming across the 12-minute long video claiming that senators were arrested in Arizona, which they believed to be true. Nothing of that sort happened. In fact many got confused because one senator was arrested in early August in Arizona but that has got nothing to do with this video.
Baseless Claim
On September 6, a robo-voiced video was broadcast in the form of a livestream by the page "Oregon News 247." The video carried a caption that read: Senators Are Arrested At Arizona Trum'p Is In Trouble
Senators Are Arrested At Arizona Trum'p Is In Trouble.
In the lower right hand corner of the video, a small looping video avatar of a newsman talking can be seen. However, the first doubt starts with the video itself as the robo-voice is not in sync with the newsman.
In the upper left corner there is an avatar of a walking elephant. The script for the robo-voice consists of a random assortment of social media, QAnon posts and news items. But the hoax begins next. The narration starts a strange list of events where each bullet point is audibly announced with the word "underscore." The word underscore is also spelled out in the captioning.
Somehow, everything looks very unusual and unlike a general news story. However, people still started falling prey to the clickbait and many even started believing that senators were arrested in Arizona.
What's the Truth?
Fact is that, nothing is real or authentic about the post and the claim. It is a clickbait to lure people into watching the video and joining the group promoted in the caption. Many failed to realize it started believing that the claim was authentic.
Although Tony Navarrete, an Arizona senator, was arrested on August 5, 2021, in connection a suspected sexual misconduct with a minor in 2019, it has nothing o do with this claim. Navarrete resigned on August 10 and that incident too didn't have any connection with Trump.
The objective of the video was to make people join the promotional group on Facebook called America Great, to which the video is linked in the caption. The group is now known by this name but has been in existence since August 30, 2011, when it was "House of Friendship Clan."
There are 13 administrators for the group -- nine of them are pages with the "News 247" branding like Oregon News 247: Utah, Arizona, California, Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Breaking. The two administrator profiles appear to be a Bulgarian woman and a Turkish woman.
However, the way the robo-voice speaks and the unusual news headlines it carries, makes the entire thing look very shady and suspicious. People believed it in and then started posting it on YouTube and Facebook.
A search shows hundred of similar videos on both the social media platform with the title "SENATORS ARE ARRESTED AT ARIZONA."
More interestingly, none of the videos have any narration which supports the headline. So it is nothing but just a clickbait.
