On April 21, 2023, the website Real Raw News published an article asserting that U.S. Space Force Gen. Chance B. Saltzman had been arrested by U.S. Special Forces on charges of treason:
Special Forces Arrest Space Force Commander for TREASON
United States Special Forces on April 16 arrested Chief of Space Force Operations Chance Saltzman on charges of treason after Vice Adm. Darse E. Crandall and Gen. Eric M. Smith signed a military arrest warrant alleging that Saltzman had essentially bankrupted Space Force by giving most of its $27billion annual budget to Ukraine, a source in Gen. Smith's office told Real Raw News.
This claim was not factual. Real Raw News regularly posts what might best be described as conspiracist fantasy fiction and includes this "satire" disclaimer on its About Us page:
Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This website contains humor, parody, and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on legal counsel.
No legitimate news sources reported the arrest of U.S. Space Force Commander Chance Saltzman in April 2023. Like Real Raw News' previous announcements of the supposed arrests and executions of U.S. government officials and political figures, the story is fiction.
Although Real Raw News carries a satire disclaimer, other websites that aggregated and shared the Saltzman arrest story do not, three examples being the QAnon-related TrustTheQ.com, a self-described Bangladeshi news portal called Dainikbidyaloy.com, and a YouTube channel with 207,000 subscribers called The Common Sense Show.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.