Poe's Law in action I guess. Spread BS with enough confidence and people will believe it - look at how often The Onion and similar satirical news sites articles are shared by people who genuinely believe them.

I don't really think anyone believes it, I think there are only people who believes that someone believes it :)

Reminds me of the time that a Russian paper had quoted The Onion as if it was true, then later had to publish a retraction saying they got their information from "an American paper known to spread falsehoods".