Fake News Sites Are Changing Their Domain Name To Get Around Facebook Fact-Checkers (mashable.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Mashable: In order to avoid Facebook's fact checking system, the site formerly known as YourNewsWire, one of the most well-known purveyors of fake news online, has simply rebranded. The site now goes by News Punch and posts fake news content similar to what it published under their former name, according to a report by Poynter. YourNewsWire co-founders Sinclair Treadway and Sean Adl-Tabatabai, who reside in California, founded the site in 2014. The two completely migrated the website from the "yournewswire.com" domain name to "newspunch.com" in November 2018. Treadway told Bloomberg at the time that they move was made due to declining revenue thanks to Facebook's fact-checking system. Under this program, fact-checking outlets like Snopes are able to mark content posted on Facebook as false, which in turn decreases the site's reach on Facebook. According to the investigation, the workaround has been a success. Content that Poynter itself had found to be previously marked false on "yournewswire.com" was ported over to the "newspunch.com" domain. When shared on Facebook, that same fake news content that now lived on "newspunch.com" was not marked as false under the fact-checking program. Facebook is reportedly rolling out features to thwart the site's workaround.

Comments

Re:Remember it's not what is being said

[Sarten-X]

"Mostly false" is usually a hedge bet. It doesn't mean the referenced claim is any more worthy of consideration.

I can make the statement that "the daytime sky is blue because there are millions of blue fairies flying around during the day, and they sleep at night." It's easy for a fact-checker to say that claim is false, because the physics of a blue sky are well-understood. Then I can turn around and attack the fact-checkers for slandering me, because it's obvious that the sky is indeed blue. By including just a small bit of truth, I can both appeal to people with only a simple understanding (like those who have looked outside and seen a blue sky), and also give myself ammunition for a later counter-attack against the fact-checkers: "See? This part is provably true, and they didn't acknowledge it! They're clearly biased against me!"

That counter-attack itself serves multiple goals. Of course, it makes my life easier if fact-checkers are discredited, since I can lie with impunity later, but it also provides a bit more cover of the original claim. While everyone is discussing how truthful the "sky is blue" claim is, they're not discussing the claim about "blue fairies sleep at night". If my political goal is to subsidize my chain of hotels catering to fairies, I can fill the conversation with arguments about fact-checkers and truth meters, while quietly pushing my agenda. If I can lie enough and manufacture enough controversy to discredit all fact-checkers, then I can lie with complete impunity. Even new start-up fact-checkers can be quickly shot down by lumping them in with my previously-discredited victims.

This is why it's important to read the full articles. The tiny assessments can give you an idea of how severely a politician is trying to manipulate you, but to really understand what's true or false, you have to read the fact-checker's full report.

Re:Working on the wrong problem.

[drinkypoo]

Fake news is a problem. But the bigger problem is a whole lot of Americans are too effing stupid to figure it out for themselves that it's fake.

Yeah, but Fb couldn't do anything about that if it wanted to. And it doesn't; smart people wouldn't give them all their info, tag people in photos, etc.