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

What did CNN change it's name to?

[danbuter]

How will CNN and MSNBC get around this ban?

Remember it's not what is being said

[Crashmarik]

But who is saying it.

Which is why fact checkers weasel with terms like mostly false which even the Columbia Journalism Review called BS

Re: Remember it's not what is being said

[Anonymous Coward]

Illegal aliens kill over 2,000 Americans per year.

This is factually accurate, supported by numerous studies and basic crime statistics where there is a body plus a person found guilty for the death.

This widely reported objective fact is rated "mostly false", but because Snopes claims, "immigrants have a lower crime rate than the general population."

Their argument is dishonest, because it purposefully ignores the operative word "illegal" which is distinctly different from just "immigrant". It also doesn't rebut the basic fact that they are actually killing 2,000 Americans per year. It just pretends like that's not what we're talking about, when it is exactly we are talking about.