Fake News Scam Sites Advertising On Real News Sites

Virtual_Raider writes "Wired is running a story about a new twist in the never-ending quest to prove P. T. Barnum's adage. Old: Scammers are creating fake news sites that look almost like the real thing. New: They are advertising on real news sites, making it difficult for unwary readers to catch on they are being duped with fake coverage of get-rich-quick scams. Among those running the scam 'news' ads are the Huffington Post and Salon. From the article: 'The story has art, it has a sidebar, there's weather, supposed reader comments — even ads. Steadman is described as "a mother from San Francisco" — at least, when I read the article. Thanks to cutting-edge reporting techniques perfected by News 5, she will automatically move to the geolocation of your internet IP address when you read it. Look, she lives right in your neighborhood!'" Forbes also wrote about the scam news sites a couple of weeks back.

Comments

What news sites is it showing up on?

[Attila Dimedici]

The summary could at least tell us what news sites it is showing up on. Huffington Post and Salon are almost as reliable as The Onion.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[mh1997]

The summary could at least tell us what news sites it is showing up on. Huffington Post and Salon are almost as reliable as The Onion. I smell another "Conservative" idiot who can't distinguish between news and editorial, and is thus enraged by "Liberal" news and gratified by "Fair and Balanced" news.

I smell an even bigger "liberal" idiot that does not have a sense of humor.

The funny thing is, is that most of the complaining about Fox News is by people that can't distinguish between news and editorial/entertainment programs. Hannity is not news, O'Reilly is not news, that blond chick with the low cut blouse and high cut skirt reading a teleprompter - that's news.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is packed with conservative partisans, though. You will be modded down for your heretical post and they will be modded up.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, you should also add the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, CBC, CTV, and anything that else that isn't Fox News.

Let's face, the only true source of News today is Fox News.

Wish everyone would just block MSNBC, ABC, NBC, New York TImes and CNN from their network.

Fox News is the only American News source which is not afraid to stand up to Obama, and provide all information to it's viewers. Why is it that Fox News is the only news source in American willing to question about the US government is doing?

 

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[internewt]

You are right - there are morons on both side of the political spectrum. (There are people who are also morons if they think there are only 2 sides).

There's no shortage of people lining up to parrot left-wing anti-corporate "facts", just as there are right-wingers who will needlessly defend the latest big business policy that has the real effect of fucking over the little guy, the environment or society.

But when it comes to genuinely smart people, they tend to be what Americans label as "liberal", and the rest of the world would call centrists or centre-left. There are intelligent people who are on the right, but they tend to use their smarts for business or personal gain, and as they benefit from their actions they fail to acknowledge the downsides of their actions. No doubt they recognise the downsides, but admitting it would probably be a death sentence for them or the businesses they run.

Cue an aforementioned big-business defender to mod me troll....

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[rohan972]

...when it comes to genuinely smart people, they tend to be what Americans label as "liberal", and the rest of the world would call centrists or centre-left. There are intelligent people who are on the right, but they tend to use their smarts for business or personal gain, and as they benefit from their actions they fail to acknowledge the downsides of their actions. No doubt they recognise the downsides, but admitting it would probably be a death sentence for them or the businesses they run.

The policies of the left centre around collective control, that control being exercised by the educated. The genuinely smart liberals stand to benefit from their proposed policies every bit as much as the intelligent people on the right.

Nevertheless, wealth and education both tend to naturally increase the opportunity for the possessor, regardless of politics (unless you get a Pol Pot going around executing the rich and educated). Personally, I don't think the conservative/liberal dichotomy is an issue of intelligence so much as it is an issue of values, particularly perception of risk. As an example, I prefer the independence of being a contractor rather than the subservience of being an employee. Others prefer the lowered risk of being an employee. That doesn't mean I think an employee has to be unintelligent, but it seems to me that business owners and contractors tend towards more conservative politics, employees to more liberal politics.

Compulsory schooling and widespread employment (as contrasted to self-employment) ensure that a large proportion of the population are accustomed to living under someone else's orders. Possibly as a result, they are more comfortable with social solutions implemented by compulsion, such as nationalised health care. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but as a conservative, I favour a system that promotes personal business ownership over large corporations for two main reasons: one, as you say, big corporations often screw the people and two, too many big corporations means a shift towards left wing compulsion politics due to the higher proportion of employees in the population.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[paazin]

I think the crackdown should be on Visa and Mastercard. Think about it; it's illegal to receive stolen goods, or sell stolen property, but the credit card companies are acting as intermediaries for these crooks. And, oh yeah, taking a cut (something like 3 - 5%). If the credit card companies had to take more responsibility for who they granted merchant accounts, under penalty of law, I'll bet these fraudsters would find it a lot harder to operate.

Interesting idea and it seems like it'd have some worth - but considering the power of these industries, it's pretty much just a pipe dream as they won't allow congresscritters to do that.

Wishing Well And Such

[tholomyes]

"Sometimes the thing that you think isn't a scam, is a scam, and the thing that you think is a scam, isn't a scam at all. And sometimes that, itself, is the scam! So as you can see, things can be pretty tricky out there for consumers."

"And for reporters!"

Re:Slashdot statism strikes again.

[swb]

The problem is, fraud is generally more about a one-time theft than duping you into buying inferior goods. When the snake-oil salesman came to town selling his potions, he promised they would work if you took them for 7 days, but he made sure to leave after about 5 days. He didn't care about selling you the same potion over and over, he only needed to sell it to you ONCE.

You're right that market forces will eventually hurt the sellers of inferior goods, but that's not the kind of "fraud" that's most common.