“Jamaica becomes the first country to make K-pop illegal.”

In 2020, NPR reported that Korean boy band BTS was the most popular group on the planet. It would seem strange, then, that the nation of Jamaica would prohibit such music. 

“Jamaica becomes the first country to make K-pop illegal,” reads a post being shared on social media. 

But this claim originated on a satire site, and this post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

“Jamaica becomes the first country to make K-pop illegal” is the headline of an Aug. 20, 2018 post on the website 8satire.com. 

A disclaimer at the bottom of the page says it is “a satire news and humor website” and that “all its content is fiction (except those posts under the ‘serious’ category) and shouldn’t be taken as real.” 

That caveat is missing as the headline is being shared online out of context. 

BuzzFeed News reported in 2018 that a spokesperson for Jamaica’s prime minister, who was mentioned in the post, responded to a tweet about Jamaica banning K-pop and said “This is NOT TRUE!!!!!” (The Twitter account for that spokesperson no longer exists.) 

We rate this claim False.