Clickbait ads claiming that Five Guys-a popular American fast food chain serving hot dogs, burgers, and french fries-is closing in 2024 have been debunked by fact-checkers.
These online advertisements started spreading in December. They are being posted on various online and social media platforms, such as Google.
But, most of them can be found on YouTube. What's suspicious about these Five Guys ads is that they all use the same photos. Now, fact-checkers were able to debunk the claims about Five Guys' closure.
Five Guys Closing Deadline 2024 Debunked
This photograph shows the logo of Five Guys, an American fast food restaurant chain, in Brussels on February 18, 2023.
According to Yahoo Finance's latest report, Snopes, a reliable fact-checking website, rated the advertisements claiming Five Guys will close in 2024 as "false."
The fact-checker explained that these Five Guys ads were nothing more than misleading clickbait. Snopes explained that the ads fool users to click them and read a 68-slide article showing the restaurants that are about to close.
The article titled "These 53 Restaurant Chains Are on the Brink of Disappearing Entirely" mostly includes American brands that are expected to close all their branches across the U.S. and other parts of the globe.
The most suspicious thing about this article is that it doesn't contain Five Guys in its list of restaurants. Another issue that fact-checkers discovered is that it was written around 2020 and was last published in 2021.
Each of the brand features was described in several paragraphs; claiming that the American restaurants would close some or all their locations because of bankruptcy or other reasons.
If you are one of the readers who were fooled by these clickbait Five Guys ads, here's why advertisers used them in the first place.
Read Also: Fact Check: Las Vegas Sphere Israeli Flag Image Is Photoshopped, as Confirmed by Socmed
Why Clickbait Five Guys Ads are Used
A Five Guys restaurant is closed due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Detroit, Michigan, on March 24, 2020. - At 12:01 am Tuesday March 24,2020 Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered a 'Stay at Home and Stay Safe Order' to slow the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) across the State of Michigan.
Snopes said that advertisers used the clickbait Five Guys ads because they were relying on advertising arbitrage. This strategy involves using ads displayed on super-long articles to generate more money.
To simply this technique, advertisers use advertising arbitrage to attract consumers in a misleading way instead of giving them helpful content. As of writing, Five Guys hasn't made any statement regarding the fake advertisements claiming it will close all its branches.
If ever you encounter suspicious ads on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms, the best thing you can do is contact Snopes or other fact-checking websites so that other users can be informed.
Related Article: FACT CHECK: Viral Instagram Video Showing Israel Raising Flags in Al Shifa Hospital is False-Here's What Fact Checkers Revealed
