A
small group of morally-challenged individuals have discovered that
there is a great deal of money to be made by publishing fake news
articles. These rags publish ridiculous headlines like “Monsanto is
Killing Your Children”, “Ukrainians Worship the Devil”, and
“Hillary Clinton’s Secret Affair with Vladimir Putin”.
These
inflammatory headlines are then promoted though social media sites
like Facebook and Twitter. The owners of these sites make money from
ads that display on their sites when people read the articles. It
appears that the more inflammatory and unbelievable the headline, the
better it spreads through social media.
Debunking these stories can
be almost impossible, as the “facts” they contain are
unverifiable and therefore unfalsifiable. Although there is no
evidence that Hillary Clinton is having an affair with Vladimir
Putin, there is also not evidence that she is not having
an affair with Vladimir Putin.
A
few of these web sites may be run by truly insane people who actually
believe what they publish, but if so that is a small minority. One of
the proofs of this is how obviously fake the articles are. Old and
heavily debunked articles from several years age are routinely
updated with new dates and names and republished as new stories. Some
site owners may believe that they are trying to shift public opinion
by convincing the public to believe outrageous lies.
Followers of
this Overton
Window theory
believe that by making wildly unbelievable and bombastic claims,
their slightly less unbelievable claims will feel more acceptable to
readers. While this certainly may be true, that does not make it a
morally acceptable strategy for discussing public policy.
Other site
owners may feel that they are simply “talking to their base” and
that this relieves them of any moral duty to tell the truth. This is
a reflection of the sad state of moral thinking in our society today.
A few sites claim to be “humor” or “satire” sites and exist
mainly to provide links which people can use to fool unsuspecting
victims on social media.
These sites will sometimes post a disclaimer
in the site footer, but often these disclaimers will disappear and
reappear over time. A small number of sites on our list are simply
government-funded propaganda sites which post ridiculous claims from
tyrannical governments which want to improve their public image or
attack the public images of their opponents.
The
sites on the list below are a mix of all of these types of sites.
Strict categorization is not simple as many of these sites exist in
multiple categories or switch between categories based upon whatever
proves to be most profitable at the current time.
- 21StCenturyWire.com
- 800WhistleBlower.com
- ActivistPost.com
- Alternet.org
- AmericanNews.com
- AntiWar.com
- BeforeItsNews.com
- BigPZone.com
- Chronicle.su
- ConsciousLifeNews.com
- ConspiracyWire.com
- CountdownToZeroTime.com
- CounterPsyOps.com
- DailyBuzzLive.com
- DailyCurrant.com
- DCClothesLine.com
- Disclose.tv
- DuffelBlog.com
- DuhProgressive.com
- EliteReaders.com
- EmpireNews.net
- English.ruvr.ru
- EUTimes.net
- FederalistPress.com
- FreePatriot.org
- FromTheTrenchesWorldReport.com
- GeoEngineeringWatch.org
- GlobalResearch.ca
- GonzoGlobe.com
- GovtSlaves.info
- GuardianLV.com
- GulagBound.com
- HangTheBankers.com
- HealthImpactNews.com
- HumansAreFree.com
- Huzlers.com
- InfoWars.com
- IntelliHub.com
- LewRockwell.com
- LibertyNews.com
- LiveFreeLiveNatural.com
- NationalReport.net
- NaturalCuresNotMedicine.com
- NaturalNews.com
- Newswire-24.com
- NoDisinfo.com
- NotAllowedTo.com
- Now8News.com
- NowTheEndBegins.com
- PakAlertPress.com
- PoliticalBlindSpot.com
- PressTV.ir
- PrisonPlanet.com
- RandPaulReview.com
- RawForBeauty.com
- RealFarmacy.com
- RedFlagNews.com
- ResponsibleTechnology.org
- RT.com
- SecretsOfTheFed.com
- SouthWeb.org
- TheCommonSenseShow.com
- TheControversialFiles.net
- TheDailySheeple.com
- TheFreeThoughtProject
- TheLastGreatStand.com
- TheNewAmerican.com
- TheRacketReport.com
- TheRightPlanet.com
- TheRunDownLive.com
- TheUSPatriot.com
- TopInfoPost.com
- TruthAndAction.org
- TruthBroadcastNetwork.com
- TurnerRadioNetwork.com
- UndergroundHealth.com
- USAHitman.com
- VeteransToday.com
- WesternJournalism.com
- WhyDontYouTryThis.com
- WorldNewsDailyReport.com
- WorldTruth.tv
- YourNewsWire.com
Each
of these sites may, at times, publish legitimate news articles. This
is a useful technique for making the illegitimate articles harder to
spot. The fact that a home burglar doesn’t rob houses three nights
a week does not make him any less of a home burglar. The fact that
some of these sites occasionally posts a legitimate article does not
make the publication itself legitimate.
Any news site will
occasionally publish a poorly-researched article. To earn a spot on
this list, the publication must show a clear disregard for the
objective truth.
We all know how terribly mainstream media outlets
like ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN fail to promote legitimate news stories.
The promise of alternative media is that we can do better than
traditional centralized mass-media. The publishers listed above are
purposefully failing to do better. They are actually doing
a worse job
than the mainstream media — something many of us once thought
impossible.
http://www.fortliberty.org/hoax-sites.html
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