Poynter Institute/List
The Poynter Institute list, aggregated 5 other lists of "Fake News":
- FactCheck.org’s Misinformation Directory (FC), created by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Fake News Codex (FN), widely quoted by Snopes and others, maintained by web developer and data designer Chris Herbert.
- OpenSources (OS), run by Merrimack University media studies professor Melissa Zimdars.
- PolitiFact's Fake News Almanac (PF), by PolitiFact, a joint project of the Tampa Bay Times and the Poynter Institute.
- Snopes' Field Guide to Fake News Sites and Hoax Purveyors (SN), created by Snopes, which emerged from the rec.urbanlegends newsgroup.
This is only phase one of the IFCN’s unreliable news index. The next phase of the project will be to automatically remove inactive sites, add sites by following URL redirects (which often lead to new fake news schemes) and harvest related domains.
For example, notorious conspiracy site YourNewsWire.com now redirects to NewsPunch.com to attempt to avoid detection by fact-checkers and the platforms. The SpyOnWeb research tool detects the relationship between misinformation sites, along with other domains connected by IP address or Google Analytics and AdSense ID (see Bellingcat’s site research guide for more on these tools).
Blacklisting bots, fraud and false-news sites
Fake news is a business. Much of that business is ad-supported.
Advertisers don’t want to support publishers that might tar their brand with hate speech, falsehoods or some kinds of political messaging — but too often, they have little choice in the matter.
Most ad-tech dashboards make it hard for businesses to prevent their ads from appearing on (and funding) disreputable sites. Marketers can create blacklists, but many of those lists have been out-of-date or incomplete.
Aside from journalists, researchers and news consumers, we hope that the UnNews index will be useful for advertisers that want to stop funding misinformation.
Methodology
Our index compiles existing site lists, curated by academic and journalists. For now, we depend on their expertise for accuracy. (A protocol to review and add sites is in the works.)
The site tags above come from those assigned by the original list curators. We grouped their differing labels into our set of six tags. Tag descriptions: FactCheck.org, Fake News Codex, OpenSources, PolitiFact, Snopes Our tag
- bias:
- OpenSources: "Extreme Bias: Sources that come from a particular point of view and may rely on propaganda, decontextualized information, and opinions distorted as facts."
- conspiracy:
- OpenSources: "Conspiracy Theory: Sources that are well-known promoters of kooky conspiracy theories."
- clickbait:
- OpenSources: "Clickbait: Sources that provide generally credible content, but use exaggerated, misleading, or questionable headlines, social media descriptions, and/or images."
- fake:
- Fake News Codex: "Sites that are fake,… A site doesn't need to exclusively publish fake content to qualify. In fact, many publish a great deal of authentic material, though it’s typically presented in a biased and tawdry fashion. This 'real' content serves as cover for the fake."
- OpenSources: "Fake News: Sources that entirely fabricate information, disseminate deceptive content, or grossly distort actual news reports."
- Politifact: "Fake news sites: There's little consistency of content or style among fake news sites — the common thread appears to be that they distribute fabricated content, but the reasons aren’t always apparent."
- Politifact: "News imposter sites: Adding to the fog of fake news online, several websites appear to try to confuse readers into thinking they are the online outlets of traditional or mainstream media sources."
- Snopes: "Fake News Sites and hoax purveyors… spreading fake news and outlandish rumors" and "false, disruptive claims" that "regularly fabricate salacious and attention-grabbing tales."
- satire:
- Fake News Codex: "Sites that are not necessarily intended to mislead (such as The Onion and its legion of imitators), but that can be misunderstood by naive readers."
- OpenSources: "Satire: Sources that use humor, irony, exaggeration, ridicule, and false information to comment on current events."
- Politifact: "Parody or joke sites: Many of the deliberately false or fake news stories we see in social media feeds begin on websites that attempt to parody real news — imagine the humor website The Onion, but without the name recognition (or often the comedic writing talent)."
- unreliable: FactCheck.org: "Websites that have posted deceptive content."
- Fake News Codex: Sites that are "extremely misleading… We do not include sites that merely have a clear political or ideological bias."
- OpenSources: "Hate News: Sources that actively promote racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination."
- OpenSources: "Junk Science: Sources that promote pseudoscience, metaphysics, naturalistic fallacies, and other scientifically dubious claims."
- OpenSources: "Rumor Mill: Sources that traffic in rumors, gossip, innuendo, and unverified claims."
- OpenSources: "State News: Sources in repressive states operating under government sanction."
- OpenSources: "Unreliable/Proceed With Caution: Sources that may be reliable but whose contents require further verification."
- Politifact: "Sites that contain some fake news: Finally, some websites appear to get duped like the rest of us."
Known members
17 of the 511 of the members already have pages here:
| Member | Description |
|---|---|
| American Thinker | |
| Antiwar.com | Antiwar news and viewpoints since 1995; has moved closer to official narratives over the years |
| Beforeitsnews.com | A "citizen journalism" website where individuals can provide stories without credentials. PropOrNot/List. |
| Daily Express | A UK newspaper which in 2016 questioned the destruction of WTC7. |
| Global Research | A research and media organization based in Montreal, Canada, and highly recommended source of independent news |
| Humansarefree.com | Named as an outlet of "Fake News" by PropOrNot. |
| Information Clearing House | One of the central independent media outlets. Tries to tell the stories that corporate media never will. Includes a lot of videos. |
| Infowars | A website operated by Alex Jones. Loved by its fans, disliked by many in powerful positions. Heavily censored by Big Tech. |
| LewRockwell.com | Named as an outlet of "Fake News" by PropOrNot. |
| OffGuardian | Produced by a group of Guardian readers unhappy with its censorship policy |
| Pravda | Formerly the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the country. Helped prevent the 2001 Mexican legislative assembly attack from being memory holed |
| The Corbett Report | Named as an outlet of "Fake News" by PropOrNot. Censored and deranked by Youtube and Twitter. |
| The Gateway Pundit | The Gateway Pundit is an online news publication consisting of news, commentary and analysis. |
| The Truthseeker | Independent website with an interest in False flag attacks |
| Veterans Today | Named as an outlet of "Fake News" by PropOrNot. |
| Worldnewsdailyreport.com | "Where facts don't matter" |
| Zero Hedge | Influential website that doesn't shrink from perspectives censored by the commercially-controlled media |
