FACT CHECK: Did Anchorage Daily News Publish This Article About A Man Being Arrested For Having Replicas Of Military Bases On His Minecraft Servers?

Elias AtienzaOctober 30, 2021

An image shared on Instagram allegedly shows an Anchorage Daily News article about a man arrested for having replicas of military bases on his Minecraft servers.

Verdict: False

There is no record of Anchorage Daily News publishing the article. The image has been fabricated, an editor from the publication said.

Fact Check:

Minecraft is a popular brick-building game that Microsoft purchased for $2.5 billion in 2014, according to CNN. Users have constructed things ranging from the Taj Mahal to the entire city of Manhattan, Business Insider reported.

In recent days, social media users have been sharing a supposed Anchorage Daily News article that puts up the headline: “Virginia man arrested for having minecraft worlds that were exact replicas of classified US military bases.” The alleged article includes a picture of a man and of what look like military vehicles made in Minecraft.

A review of the Anchorage Daily News website, however, did not turn up any articles matching the one shown in the Instagram post. Nor does the purported story appear on the reporter’s author page. An article with that headline also hasn’t been posted on the outlet’s verified social media accounts.

“This is not a real article – it’s 100% fabricated,” David Hulen, an editor at Anchorage Daily News, confirmed to Check Your Fact in an email. “It looks like our site but it is fabricated.” (RELATED: Is Minecraft Shutting Down In December?)

The doctored image was previously posted on iFunny, a website where users can share internet memes and other images, a reverse image search showed. The picture of the blocky military vehicles that appears in the fabricated article resembles an image on Minecraft’s website.

Check Your Fact didn’t find any news outlets reporting about a Virginia man being arrested for having replicated classified military bases on Minecraft.