breakingnews247.net is another in a long list of prank sites (aka Lazy ClickBait). The site is upfront about what it is ("Prank your friends now!") but if you're not paying attention, you could get caught-out!
When we went to The National Sun’s Facebook page, the first thing we’re greeted with was — — and instantly we wanted to believe everything they had to say. I mean . . . look at him! Really, take a look at him!!! Alas, their About section reveals their true nature: There’s also the Disclaimer on their website: The National…
As of this writing, 800whistleblower.com has this image on the landing page: — which asks you to visit www.Wistleblower411.com. Click THAT link fires off a series of 2 or 3 redirects in rapid succession, before landing on a page asking you to disable search tracking. We want to mark them as ClickBait — and likely dangerous for your computer’s well-being…
The White Voice is not-so-thinly veiled racism dressed up as ‘true progressive-ism.’ I don’t buy it, of course, but you know . . . they have books out and stuff, so. Whatever. [Editor’s Note: This racial shitbag doesn’t deserve to be listed as ‘real.’ Yes, Joe Adams (real name, likely, Joe Hayward) is dead-serious about his nonsense, but our site…
According to their About Page, the The Daily Meal was founded by a former CEO of Forbes.com, Jim Spanfeller. The site covers culinary topics with their articles, videos, and special reports. Not sure why anyone would think a recipe for Spicy Vegetarian Chili Recipe would be satirical. I don’t think The Daily Meal is being ironic when they call it…
“If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets.” That Frank Hubert Dune quote immediately sprung to mind when we saw this article from www.toeindia.in. Toeindia.in stands for “Times of Everything,” whatever that means. And the fine folks at LGBTQ Nation already discussed the hoax nature on this story, as well as two other ridiculous Toeindia.in stories. [Editor’s Note: We’ll revisit…
The title of the site itself shows that it's trying too hard. The site's design, however, shows that their web designers aren't trying hard enough. But is it real? Or satire?
Abiyamo is a Nigerian news and entertainment blog. It’s likely real with global stories slanted towards the African culture in general, and Nigeria specifically. One story they had (Egyptian Court Quashes One Of The Two Life Sentences Handed To Ex-President Mohamed Morsi) check outs with both BBC and Aljezeera. Sometimes you will find stories that have no source cited, like…
The headlines on this site are pretty obviously fake, but depending on the writer, they can sometimes read fairly credible, at first glance. At the very gutter of the page (footer, for all you net-savvy folks) you’ll find their disclaimer: Unconfirmed Sources political satire and news story parodies as represented above are written as satire or parody. They are, of…
From Rational Wiki: Educate-yourself (“The Freedom of Knowledge, The Power of Thought ©”) is a green ink website of alternative medicine, pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, UFOs, Sylphs, and every other form of crankery under the sun. Think of it as the Californian equivalent of whale.to. The editor is Ken Adachi. “Green Ink” is a British term, meaning, the letter from a…
It’s hard to categorize this one. Conservapedia is a wiki-encyclopedia project with an extremely far-Right agenda/slant. Their goal is to counter the “liberal bias” of the media in general and Wikipedia specifically. So it’s hard to consider it “real news” because of it. Though it’s definitely not satire. One of the interesting editorial requirements (or requests) from Conservapedia is that…
The A.V. Club is owned by The Onion; however, the site is not specifically satirical. They are more of an entertainment news site, though they maintain a decidedly humorous slant. They might have satire in their Comedy section, but it’s not the ‘Gotchya!’ sort of satire. Looking at three random articles: Insane Clown Posse’s FBI lawsuit thrown out; Juggalos are…
UPDATE 01/31/2017: Categorizing madworldnews.com as “Real” never felt quite right with us. At the time of the initial review, we had a binary grading system: either a site was real, or it was satire. Mad World News didn’t quite sit comfortably in that either-or system. Where do we place highly opinionated commentary sites that commented on real news? But now…
Real Farmacy is difficult to categorize. They’re not satire, but they’re not exactly real, either. Or, should I say, they’re not exactly factual. Oh, they’ll post mostly-real; or real stories, but it’ll be a story that’s 10 years old (see below); or it will be a mostly-true story with misleading headlines, which isn’t something that is entirely new to anyone…
Not even sure what the point is for hollywooodreporter.co -- and the other sites that are connected to it. Is this ClickBait? Are they simply banking on ad revenue from the occasional visit? Likely. Either way, it's all fake.
iacknowledge(class warfare exists).net may be alittle heavy-handed in their topics and approach — and might be considered extremely left-leaning to the point of obfuscation — but a fact-check of three random posts check out. They’re not above pulling the Upworthy-like headlines, such as “This Deaf Pit Bull Puppy Was Heartlessly Kidnapped. How He Made It Home Is Incredible,” One clue…
While the New Yorker is, of course, real news, the URL that came our way was for the Borowitz Report. From Andy Borowitz’s Wiki page: In 2001, he founded The Borowitz Report, a site that posts one 250-word news satire every weekday. Borowitz also hosts The Moth, which is a most excellent storytelling show on public radio.
Though not as prevalent as previous years, Channel 45 News is a prank-news generator, much like Break Your Own News. So this story about Justin Bieber coming out as bisexual and dating Ricky Martin is fake. Of course, with the word “prank” plastered all over the site, we can only assume that the intent of Channel 45 News is pure clickbait.…
By their own admission, the National Review is a right-leaning site/magazine known for “up-to-the-minute conservative commentary on politics, news, and culture.” Author William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley founded the magazine in the early 50s and, himself, was known for several controversies: He co-authored a book defending McCarthyism and referred to HIV/AIDS as a “gay curse,” calling for immediate sterilization of…
