A news release claiming a partnership between
The false announcement was temporarily featured on a major press release wire and in outlets including Reuters, CNBC and Yahoo Finance, before being deleted and corrected. It wasn’t immediately clear who created it.
Here's a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM:
THE FACTS: The nation’s largest retailer is not partnering with Litecoin, despite a bogus news release claiming as much, Blakeman told The Associated Press by phone.
Lee, who created Litecoin, confirmed the release was fake in an email to the AP. A Litecoin employee mistakenly tweeted the false claim on Monday from the currency's verified account after seeing the bogus announcement on GlobeNewswire, a major distributor of news releases, Lee explained. The employee later realized his error and deleted the tweet, Lee said.
The release touted the false headline “Walmart Announces Major Partnership With Litecoin.” It fabricated quotes from
After the release was published, Twitter users pointed out that
Though this announcement is fake,
The false news release briefly tripped up national news outlets, Twitter users and cryptocurrency buyers. The price of Litecoin jumped from about
GlobeNewswire, which briefly featured the release on its site before removing it, is conducting an investigation into what happened, said
“This has never happened before and we have already put in place enhanced authentication steps to prevent this isolated incident from occurring in the future,” Pleiss said.
GlobeNewswire is an
This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission., source