It’s clear that BTNOMB is primarily an entertainment site, filled with the sorts of “juicy” celeb stories that may or may not eventually be proven true — and by the time the gossip is proven, everyone has moved on to the next big story. But are they real? Satire? Or something worse?
The last update for Dead Brain appears to have been way back in 2009. From their Disclaimer page: Most of the people, events and corporations mentioned on this site are completely fictional [. . .] As for the rest, everything true is true, and everything false is done for the purpose of satire [. . .].
Names are important! This is ever true when discussing a so-called newsite. Lapine is a real word (French, I believe) but it’s also the fictional language spoken by rabbits in the 1972 novel Watership Down. A Novel. You should read it.. From their About page: The Lapine is all about poking people and things that deserve to be poked. It…
Self-branded as the “27th most trusted source for Public Safety News, Call the Cops is a satire of the current state of Law Enforcement, Fire Fighting and Emergency Medical work, per their Twitter profile. From their About page: This site is a satire of the current state of Law Enforcement, Fire Fighting and Emergency Medical work. Stories posted here are…
The article submitted to us from PoliticalEars.com was this one: THREE OF FIVE DETAINEES SWAPPED ARE NOW ISIS LEADERS However, it’s basically a copy of this report from our good friends at National Report: Terrorist Exchanged For Bowe Bergdahl Now Top ISIS Commander Political Ears hadn’t noted its sources — likely because someone had already called them out on sourcing…
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!
Betoota is a small town in Diamantina Shire, in the Channel Country of Central West Queensland, Australia. Betoota Advocate, however, still has some Lorem Ipsum text on it. I’m assuming it’s not real. Now whether it’s pure gossip or satire is a question for another day. Since we don’t have bullshit category, we’re gonna mark this one “satire.”
We have no patience for sites like News10Live.com. They are merely clickbait sites that dress their articles up in cheap news-like knockoff clothing in the hopes that they can either trick its visitors into sharing the article online, or trick its detractors into thinking they are purveyors of fine satire. (Clearly it’s the former.) Maybe if their stories were even…
allenbwest.com is ‘real’ for the sake of our purposes here, meaning, it’s not satirical. Fond of citing the New York Post, another in the Murdoch sensationalist crop, it’s more an anti-Obama mouthpiece than anything else. This was the article that was submitted to us: http://allenbwest.com/2014/07/abject-disdain-military-troops-get-pink-slips-combat/ Basically, it’s blasting Obama for firing over 100 military personnel, including some generals. But the…
www.liberaldarkness.com is satire by their own admission. Well . . . only if by “admission,” we actually mean, “take a look at the site’s logo". Read on for more:
Landover Baptist Church is another example of Poe’s Law, similar to Christwire. Fully immersed in the joke, you are knee-deep in muck and mire of this extremely conservative “church.” There is no sign of the site breaking character, even on their ‘Godly Terms of Service’ page, which features paragraph upon paragraph of semi-legal gobbledygook. That is until you get to…
We actually commend Conservative Outfitters on their schtict. They sell clothes (and other things like coffee mugs, ‘museum quality’ artwork) on a nicely designed website that tries to draw a weak connection to a well established clothing store (Urban Outfitters) — all with conservative slogans, mantras, quotes, etc — while redistributing news from other Conservative outlets. Enrage the audience. Then…
Fake news outlet usatodaysnews.com attempts to circumvent casual investigative tools by removing the site's "right-click" functionality. But we got their number at any rate -- read on.
We’re really going to have to put limits on what we can do here, at RoS. We’ve mentioned before that we are an English-language site, though we can generally suss out Spanish, German, and Dutch sites. That does limit us and the sort of data we can provide; however, so long as these international sites make it easy to suss…
Based out of Cincinnati, Derf’s website is too colorful to be taken seriously. “Maybe they figure that colorful news sites will grab your attention better?” Eh, fair enough. From their About page: DERF Magazine.com is the premier provider of humor and satire content in Cincinnati. Derf is dedicated to making fun of everything!
Local, national, and international news tend to focus on all the shitty horrendous goings-on in the world, so it’s nice to have a place where you can just find delightful tidbits of positivity and examples of humans being . . . well, human to each other. Reshareworthy.com is an Upworthy-like repository (repostitory?) of media that the owners consider worthy of…
alternet.org is considered a “progressive activist site” and “independent news site.” It’s financed through individual donations, by grants from major donors, and ad revenue. It’s that last bit that tells you the sort of headlines you can expect, on par with the current Netstream Media practices. They have won an assortment of Webby Awards throughout the years, as well as…
The story from worldnewspolitics.com submitted to us was this one: Queen Elizabeth Makes Heartbreaking Announcement About Royal Family’s Future Now defunct fake-news Brit sites, 1ndependent and Da1lyMail (see the naming convention trend?) originally posted this same story last year, claiming that the Queen would not only retire, but skip over Prince Charles in favor of Prince William to be King.…
Christians for Michelle Bachman is a satirical slam against both Michelle Bachman and her staunchest supporters. Its typical m.o. is to combine some right-wing talking point with spelling/grammar mistakes. While this sort of appeal to ridicule is fallacious, it does lend itself to some well-crafted comedy.
