It hasn’t even been a full week into President Donald Trump’s second term and already people are panicking about news that isn’t even real. While Trump was preparing his return to the White House, one TikTok creator decided to take the opportunity to spread what the now-president would call “fake news.”
Suggested Reading
TikToker William Elston posted a video claiming Trump tweeted a new child support law. Elston has a combined 300,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram, and with all that influence, you’d think he’d take the responsibility more seriously.... But, no.
According to Elston, Trump said “if you put your baby daddy on child support, the baby daddy now gets all of the income tax.” The video quickly went viral— now having over 12 million views— and began sparking conversations and heated internet discourse on who should be able to claim children on their taxes— the mother or the father paying child support.
On X, one user, @JoseyWales1870, took Elston’s bait and said “Women that get child support the double dip party is over if you haven’t already filed your taxes ya done next year ya done.”
@kizzyperuso posted a TikTok that now has almost 4 million views. In her video, she warned “all these women that are putting their baby dads on child support and stuff like that— some are doing it for good reasons [and] some are doing it just to be spiteful— well, guess what? Everybody’s about to be bit in the ass.”
But while many online were clearly convinced by one man’s eight second video with absolutely no proof, many saw right through the nonsense and called out anyone who believed it. @ksb1908 wrote on X “After a quick fact-check, I had to tell everyone sending it to me it wasn’t true. I can’t believe people really get their news from TikTok!”
Another user, @ImToBlame, said “Ignorant people have turned Trump into this fantasy charitable figure. First it’s the stimulus checks. Now it’s a flat out lie about child support. We ain’t ever gonna be free dawg.”
The internet quickly spun out of control, so much so that Elston came back to TikTok and confessed he lied about all of it. “That Trump, child support stuff? I made it up,” he said. “I’m seeing duplicates of the video, people using my sound, [and] some people just creating their own narrative from it, but it’s fake.”
Despite the uproar and all the backlash, Elston said the whole situation sparked “a good conversation that everybody’s having.” Of course, Elston’s confession hasn’t stopped the internet from continuing to spread misinformation about the fake Trump tweet, but all this drama is just another reminder to fact check and research on your own!
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.