Community Picks: Arizona Cardinals 0% vs Washington Redskins 0%

For a few hours on Wednesday morning, a small group of Native American activists convinced the internet that Washington’s professional football franchise had finally decided to change its racist “Redskins” team name. “Native Leaders Celebrate a Victory as Washington Football Changes Mascot to the Redhawks,” a headline blared, in the style of The Washington Post. It and three other spoofed stories ― on sites that looked like those of ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Bleacher Report ― circulated across Twitter and other social media platforms to applause from those who have spent years calling on the team to change its name. Even the URLs mimicked the real thing, with only minor changes (the ersatz Post story, for instance, was on washpostsports.com, while the paper’s real sports page is at washingtonpost.com/sports). Continue to Article

December 13, 2017 4:23:pm EST

The Washington Redskins have fallen victim to a name change hoax. Several media outlets masking themselves as legitimate news sources changed the NFL team’s name to the Washington Redhawks as the DC team continues to face backlash for its name, which many consider to be offensive to Native Americans. “This morning, the Redskins organization was made aware of fraudulent websites about our team name,” Tony Wyllie, the Washington Redskins’ senior vice president of communications, said in a statement sent via email. Continue to Article

December 13, 2017 4:09:pm EST

The group created fake pages for the websites of the Washington Post, Bleacher Report, ESPN and Sports Illustrated, taking great pains to make them look like real pages for each outlet, and many people were convinced the news was real. “We created this action to show the NFL and the Washington Football franchise how easy, popular and powerful changing the name could be,” Rebecca Nagle, a member of the Cherokee Nation and one of the organizers of the stunt, said in a statement. An activist group called Rising Hearts staged a stunt on Wednesday, using fake web pages to announce that Washington had changed its mascot to Redhawks. Continue to Article

December 13, 2017 3:06:pm EST

Washington Redskins safety Su'a Cravens has been cleared to resume football activities and plans to play next season, his agent said Tuesday. Fadde Mikhail said in a statement that Cravens suffered from post-concussion syndrome, was cleared Dec. 7 and no longer has symptoms. Cravens left the Redskins in early September as he mulled retirement. Continue to Article

December 12, 2017 11:49:am EST