On Dec. 24, 2023, an account on X tweeted a "breaking news" headline claiming that the actor Tom Hanks had announced he would be leaving the United States if Donald Trump was elected president in 2024. According to the view counter on the X platform, the post had been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
?BREAKING NEWS ?
Tom Hanks has said he will leave the United States if Trump becomes President in 2024
what are your thoughts ? pic.twitter.com/fS6Uw8nNNj
— dustin mills (@dustinemills24) December 24, 2023
Under the tweet, commenters celebrated Hanks' supposed decision, calling him things like "pedo trash" (a reference to baseless conspiracy theories accusing Hanks of being a "Hollywood pedophile") and attempting to link Hanks to the late, disgraced financier and sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the account that posted the tweet, it was satire and was not meant to be taken seriously.
"it is Satire come on is that hard to understand Satire," the account replied to one of the few commenters who was critical of the post.
Hanks is among the many celebrities targeted by claims connecting them to rumors of pedophilia. The claims are a part of the large web of QAnon conspiracy theories, which have been circulating since at least 2016. Snopes has thoroughly checked all parts of these rumors and found them to be false.
Hanks would have an easy time leaving the United States for good if he decided to do so — he and his wife, Rita Wilson, have held dual American-Greek citizenship since July 2020. But as previously stated, the account that posted the tweet later clarified it was satire in the replies.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.