President Obama Lowers Age of Consent to 13-Fiction!

President Obama Lowers Age of Consent to 13-Fiction!

Summary of eRumor:
President Obama has signed an executive order that lowers the age of consent for legal sex to 13.
The Truth:
A fake news website is behind this legal consent myth.
Now8News, a fake news website that is designed to look like a local news channel, falsely reported that President Obama had signed an executive order lowering the age of consent to 13 effective on March 1, 2016. The story, which appears under the headline “Obama Signs Law to Lower the Age of Consensual Sex to 13 Years of Age, Effective 3/1/16,” reports:

Washington, D.C. – An announcement was made on Monday by the Obama Administration which states a new law that will take effect March 1, 2016 and Americans are shocked and disappointed. According to the announcement, the law concerning the age of consent will be changed across all 50 states and D.C. Currently the law varies in each state with the age of consent being 16, 17, and 18 years old with age provisions and mistake of age defense clauses. Currently, according to lawyers and court officials across the US, these varying laws cause confusion from state to state. This new law is looking to create a uniformed, understood age of consent factor across the entire country.

The story went on to report that “any and all” contact with girls above the age of 13 would be legal, and that Donald Trump had vowed on the campaign trail to “immediately revoke” the new law if he’s elected president.
Of course, none of that is true. Now8News is one of many fake news websites that is designed to look like a local television news station to gain credibility. These sites publish fake news stories that are submitted by their community of readers and should not be taken seriously.
Anytime that you read a suspicious report about a president signing an executive order into law, check here before you do anything else. All executive orders are listed on the White House website. If the executive order doesn’t appear there, it wasn’t signed by the president.