Did you know that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug lord, escaped prison, again, on Friday? Did you know it because you read it on a seemingly-reputable news site?

Well you were wrong, but you were not alone. Enough people got taken in by a fake news site that posted a story on Guzman's escape that "El Chapo" was the number one trending topic on Twitter for Portland Friday afternoon with more than 221,000 people talking about the maybe-escaped kingpin nationwide.

The story was posted by a fake news site posing as ABC News, though the site doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. The web address has an extra ".co" at the end and the logo looks like the normal ABC logo if it went through a washing machine on the wrong setting.

The top of the story reads convincingly enough with quotes from official-sounding officials and details of the supposed escape. If you continue reading, however, the story's credibility strains under the weight of a quote from "Fappy The Anti-Masturbation Dolphin, a mascot for a Christian organization that travels around the country educating children about the dangers and consequences of masturbation."

Fappy's quote is followed by a Drug Enforcement Agency official describing the hunt for the druglord using a verbatim quote from "The Fugitive."

As far as we know, Guzman remains in prison.

-- Kale Williams

kwilliams@oregonian.com

503-294-4048