A Charlie Kirk remembrance on the scoreboard of the game between the Tennessee Titans and Los Angeles Rams at Nissan Stadium on Sept. 14, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn.
Justin Ford/Getty Images
Late Wednesday night, San Francisco 49ers star George Kittle posted a screenshot to his Instagram Story of a viral Facebook post featuring a quote claiming to come from the tight end.
“I love football because it unites people,” the pull quote read over a photo of Kittle with his helmet off. “But lately, I’ve seen politics being dragged into it far too often. Charlie Kirk may matter to some, but he has no place in the NFL. Football is for the fans, the competition, and the love of the game — not for politics.”
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The problem is Kittle never said that.
“Couple of things.. this is a fake quote,” Kittle wrote on his Instagram Story alongside the screenshot. “I hope most of you realize that. Also, that above account only posts fake news/reports, please ignore them. The wild messages I’m receiving from people made me have to address it. Have a good night.”
The fake quote was initially posted on Tuesday by a sports page on Facebook titled “Red And Gold Legacy,” which looks like your garden variety Facebook fan page, complete with an AI banner that screams 49ers (red, gold, football helmets, etc.) without seeming to violate any copyrights.
A screenshot of a San Francisco 49ers Facebook fan page.
Screenshot via Facebook
Over the past several months, the page has posted actual, real 49ers stories to a WordPress site (sport247.topnewsource.com) that appear to be almost universally copied and pasted directly from legitimate news sites — SI.com was a popular plagiarism target.
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But over the past week, the Facebook page has leaned heavily into trying to monetize the intense discourse surrounding the death of Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed at a rally on Utah Valley University’s campus in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 10. The page has churned out completely fabricated quotes and news items about Kirk, a 31-year-old political activist who frequently expounded far-right views. One such post showed a fake image of a Charlie Kirk statue in front of the 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium.
A screenshot from sport247.topnewsource.com.
Screenshot via sport247.topnewsource.com
SFGATE reached out to Facebook parent Meta for comment on the Kittle post specifically, and the page in general, asking how exactly Facebook moderates misinformation that goes viral enough to force an NFL player to have to address it.
An hour later, Facebook had nuked the page and provided a succinct comment from Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton: “Thanks. The page is indeed in violation and has since been removed/unpublished.”
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But an SFGATE investigation Thursday morning revealed there are in fact dozens of sports-specific Facebook pages spreading fake information. They’re dedicated to virtually every NFL team, from Detroit Gridiron Heroes (Lions), to Green and Gold Legacy (Packers), to Ravens Purple Wings (Ravens), to Soar High Philly (Eagles), and even a second 49ers Facebook page: Red and Gold Pride, which also posted the fake Kittle quote. Those five pages alone have almost 75,000 Facebook followers combined — more than six times the size of the Facebook account for local NorCal news outlet Lookout Santa Cruz, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2024 for breaking news reporting. All of the Facebook pages drive to the same scam WordPress site, and all of them are leaning hard into inciting anger or division over Kirk’s death with fake quotes from NFL stars — and most of the pages have thousands of followers who seem to believe a lot of what they’re publishing.
A screenshot of a Detroit Lions Facebook fan page.
Screenshot via Facebook
A screenshot of a Baltimore Ravens Facebook fan page.
Screenshot via Facebook
A screenshot of a Green Bay Packers Facebook fan page.
Screenshot via Facebook
A screenshot of a Minnesota Vikings Facebook fan page.
Screenshot via Facebook
And while Red and Gold Legacy is now deleted, these other pages are still very much active — SFGATE didn’t specifically call them out to Meta’s spokesperson. The result is the misleading posts are still very much circulating across the internet, like one from Ravens Purple Wings that claims Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton is donating his entire NFL salary to schools and programs across Texas. That post is, of course, a lie, but has a slew of comments praising Hamilton for his generosity, plus hundreds of likes and shares. Were anyone to click through to read the story, they’d be inundated with ads on a nearly unusable scam site that they’d no doubt abandon before reading any of the actual content. But that’s also why the scam works — a majority of readers only see the headline on Facebook and never actually encounter the easily decipherable garbage that lives on the website, including a line about how Hamilton’s words will “resonate with Team USA.” Team USA does not have a football team.
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Most of the posts on this network of scam Facebook pages get a pittance of likes and comments from the small bubbles of people who believe them, but occasionally a post breaks containment — as is the case with the Kittle post — leading to misinformation that spreads like wildfire on the platform. The Kittle post alone had more than 5,400 likes, 744 comments and 377 shares as of Thursday morning.
Screenshots of fake news graphics about Charlie Kirk’s death.
Screenshot via Facebook and Instagram
This is a post from Sept. 14 from the Eagles-themed page, Soar High Philly:
“BREAKING NEWS: Philadelphia Eagles Leave Empty Seat in Memory of Charlie Kirk – ‘Forever with the Eagles.’ In the windy stands of Lincoln Financial Field, where millions of Eagles have cheered for generations, there is now an empty seat that will never be filled.”
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This isn’t true either, but it’s at least somewhat plausible — the Arizona Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans all held moments of silence or tributes to Kirk over the weekend, which the White House loudly trumpeted on Sunday.
A screenshot of a fake news graphic about Charlie Kirk’s death.
Screenshot via Facebook
Screenshots of fake news graphics about Charlie Kirk’s death.
Screenshot via Facebook
A screenshot of a fake news graphic about Charlie Kirk’s death.
Screenshot via Facebook
In addition to being an alarming window into the state of media literacy in America, there’s also potentially some decent money involved from exploiting athletes like Kittle.
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According to website traffic checker Similarweb, the WordPress scam site drove more than 300,000 visits in August alone — a number that very likely will be much higher in September as it latched onto the Kirk news moment. A whopping 95% of its traffic is coming from social, according to Similarweb. For comparison’s sake, the Los Angeles Times has fewer than 300,000 subscribers.
The site is riddled with programmatic ads, which — even with basement level programmatic ad rates — are very likely generating thousands of dollars a year. As the site’s unknown makers reap those profits, their posts are becoming an increasingly frustrating annoyance for actual players and their families.
“This is clearly a fake quote,” Kittle’s wife Claire Kittle shared in an Instagram Story on Wednesday night. “How sick is the world that someone actually took the time to write and post this & about George of all people. What’s even more sickening is the fact that George had to address this on social media because of the hate coming in. Leave us alone & goodnight.”
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SFGATE tech reporter Stephen Council contributed to this story.
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