Fake news websites (also referred to as hoax news websites)[1][2] are websites on the Internet that deliberately publish fake news—hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news—often using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect.[3][4][5][6] Unlike news satire, these websites deliberately seek to be perceived as legitimate and taken at face value, often for financial or political gain.[7][8][4] Fake news websites monetize their content by exploiting the vulnerabilities of programmatic ad trading,[9] which is a type of online advertising in which ads are traded through machine-to-machine auction in a real-time bidding system.[10]
Fake news websites have promoted political falsehoods in India,[11][12] Germany,[13][14] Indonesia and the Philippines,[15] Sweden, Mexico,[16][17] Myanmar,[18] and the United States.[19][20] Many sites originate in, or are promoted by, Russia,[3][21] or North Macedonia among others.[22][23] Some media analysts have seen them as a threat to democracy.[14] In 2016, the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a resolution warning that the Russian government was using "pseudo-news agencies" and Internet trolls as disinformation propaganda to weaken confidence in democratic values.[5]
In 2015, the Swedish Security Service, Sweden's national security agency, issued a report concluding Russia was using fake news to inflame "splits in society" through the proliferation of propaganda.[16] Sweden's Ministry of Defence tasked its Civil Contingencies Agency with combating fake news from Russia.[16] Fraudulent news affected politics in Indonesia and the Philippines, where there was simultaneously widespread usage of social media and limited resources to check the veracity of political claims.[15] German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of the societal impact of "fake sites, bots, trolls".[14]
Fraudulent articles spread through social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election,[19][20] and several officials within the U.S. Intelligence Community said that Russia was engaged in spreading fake news.[24][25] Computer security company FireEye concluded that Russia used social media to spread fake news stories[26] as part of a cyberwarfare campaign.[27] Google and Facebook banned fake sites from using online advertising.[28][29] Facebook launched a partnership with fact-checking websites to flag fraudulent news and hoaxes; debunking organizations that joined the initiative included: Snopes.com, FactCheck.org, and PolitiFact.[30] U.S. President Barack Obama said a disregard for facts created a "dust cloud of nonsense".[31] Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Alex Younger called fake news propaganda online dangerous for democratic nations.[32]
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