Bizarre (and fake) Jose Altuve social media story a cautionary tale for Astros fans

Social media is a cesspool of misinformation covering almost any topic imaginable. If there is public interest in a person or organization, there is likely scam artists trying to profit from it with misrepresentations and outright lies in order to generate clicks. Unfortunately, even Houston Astros icon Jose Altuve is not immune to the scourge.

Most of the conversation about Altuve this season has surrounded his position change, with a smattering of discussion as to how much Altuve's production is expected to decline throughout his five-year extension with the Astros.

In a bizarre twist, Altuve found himself in the news recently, but not in a way that most would have thought. A story began swirling on the internet that Altuve had been berated and denied entry into a Houston-area Louis Vuitton store because he was wearing casual attire. Commenters were calling for the employees' heads and claiming discrimination against Altuve.

The only problem: the Altuve-Louis Vuitton story was completely fake.

Fake Jose Altuve story on social media should give Astros fans pause before believing everything they see

We aren't going to get too into which Facebook page was responsible for spreading this nonsense, but please read the Houston Chronicle articles linked above so that you can unfollow and block the specific page if you want to make sure you don't get infected by them.

It is honestly remarkable that the city paper of record, the Chronicle, had to expend actual effort and words debunking this story. That is a testament to how quickly stories, even fake ones, can spread and get out of hand. Thankfully, this one appears to have been snuffed out before real people suffered too much, although we suggest that the Vuitton store just delete all of their voicemails for a little while.

In short, if you see a story on social media that isn't being shared by any reputable news outlet, the odds that that story is fake are extremely high. There are plenty of fact-based things about this Astros team that fans can go to war over online. One doesn't need to just make stuff up, but that is the world we occupy.

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