List of fake news websites
For satirical news, see List of satirical news websites.
This is a list of fake news sites. These sites intentionally publish hoaxes anddisinformation for purposes other thannews satire.
Definition
List
| Name | Notes | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| 70 News | a WordPress-hosted site that published a false news story, stating that Donald Trump had won the popular vote in the 2016 United States presidential election; the fake story rose to the top in searches for "final election results" onGoogle News | [9][10] |
| ABCnews.com.co | Owned by Paul Horner. Mimics the URL, design and logo of ABC News (owned byDisney–ABC Television Group). | [11][12] |
| American News | Published a false story claiming actorDenzel Washingtonendorsed Donald Trump for president. The fictional headline led to thousands of people sharing it on Facebook, a prominent example of fake news spreading on the social network prior to the 2016 presidential election. | [13][14][15] |
| Before It's News | Cited by US PresidentDonald Trumpat his 2016 campaign rallies. Before Its News andInfowars were described as "unabashedly unhinged 'news' sites" in 2014 by the Washington Post following its promotion of conspiracy theories relation to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.[16] | [17][16] |
| bizstandardnews.com | Its stories have been mistaken as real-news then shared and cited as real-news.[18]
Its disclaimer says the stories "could be true" because "reality is so strange nowadays". But the disclaimer also says it is "a satirical site designed to parody the 24-hour news cycle."[19]
Its name is similar to the unrelated Indian English-language daily newspaper called Business Standard.
| [18][20][21][22][23][24] |
| Bloomberg.ma | Designed to imitateBloomberg.com. Was used to issue a false report announcing that Twitter had received a USD $31 billion takeover offer, the false report resulted in a brief 8% stock price spike of Twitter. Site now defunct. | [25][26] |
| The Boston Tribune | Starting in February 2016, this website's outright hoaxes quickly became popular with its readers. | [27] |
| Celebtricity | Has claimed:
*That President Obama declared a state of emergency in Chicago after more than 300 people were shot in one night.
*That an employee at a Wendy's put vaginal discharge on a burger as revenge against a partner.
*Bryshere Y. Gray is Jay-Z's son.
| [28][29][30] |
| cnn-trending.com | Imitated the CNN.com, complete with the CNN logo. Pushed theHawking Codescam | [31][32] |
| Conservative 101 | Falsely claimed that the White House firedKellyanne Conway. | [13][14] |
| Conservative Frontline | Owned by Jestin Coler. | [33] |
| CountyNewsroom.info | The fake news website, registered toTbilisi, Georgia, makes "a minimal attempt to look official" and is used to spread malwareon readers' computers.[34] | [34] |
| Daily Buzz Live | [17] | |
| DC Gazette | [17] | |
| Denver Guardian | Owned by Jestin Coler. | [33] |
| Disclose TV | [17] | |
| DrudgeReport.com.co | Owned by Jestin Coler (mimics the name of theDrudge Report). | [33] |
| Empire Herald | Starting in January 2016, this fake news site had spread many of its hoaxes online in just a few weeks. | [27] |
| Empire News | Many of this website's fake news hoaxes were widely shared on social media, with stories based off social or political controversies, or were simply appalling to readers. | [11][27] |
| Empire Sports | Not to be confused with the legitimate (but long-defunct) Empire Sports Network. | [35] |
| Firebrand Left | Owned by Jestin Coler. | [33] |
| Global Associated News | [35] | |
| Gossip Mill Mzansi | A fake news website usingWordpress, targeting South African affairs. Its misinformation is spread on social media includingFacebook andTwitter. | [36][37] |
| Gummy Post | Fake news website that has published claims about President Obama issuing a full pardon for convicted rapper C-Murder, Musician Kodak Black getting shot outside a nightclub in Florida, and aHulk Hogandeath hoax. | [38][39][40] |
| Huzlers | Fake news from this website often involve popular restaurants and brands to disgust readers with its gross-out stories. One story by the site falsely reported that Dong Nguyen, the creator of Flappy Bird, killed himself. Another story made up an incident where a person working at aMcDonald'srestaurant put his mixtapes inHappy Meals. | [27][35][41][42] |
| InfoWars | Managed byAlex Jones. Has previously claimed that millions of people have voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, that theSandy Hook Elementary School shootingwas a hoax, that the Boston Marathon bombing was a hoax, and that the Democratic Party was hosting a child sex slave ring out of a pizza restaurant. | [17][43][44][45] |
| KMT 11 News | Falsely reports celebrity appearances and filming locations in random local towns. | [52][53][54][55] |
| The Last Line of Defense | This website has a history of publishing fake news articles, especially of the political genre. Notable hoaxes include Donald Trump revoking the press credentials of six major news outlets, Michelle Obama getting ditched by theSecret Service, and Hillary ClintondescribingBeyonce's music using racial slurs. | [56][57][58] |
| Liberal Society | Published a fake direct quoute attributed to Obama, Falsely claimed that the White House fired Kellyanne Conway. | [13][14] |
| Liberty Writers News | Established in 2015 by Paris Wade and Ben Goldman, who told theWashington Posttheir stories focus on "violence and chaos and aggressive wording" to attract readers. The stories reflect the positions of supporters ofDonald Trump.[59] | [60][59] |
| LinkBeef | Fake news website that has published claims about the pilot ofMalaysia Airlines Flight 370reappearing, a billionaire wanting to recruit 1,000 women to bear his children, and an Adam Sandler death hoax. | [61][62][63] |
| Media Mass | [35] | |
| Naha Daily | This fake news website is now defunct, and was active in a span of five months with popular fake news articles, including a fake quote byMichael Kors. | [27] |
| NationalReport.net | Founder Jestin Coler toldColumbia Journalism Review "When it comes to the fake stuff, you really want it to be red meat. [...] It doesn’t have to be offensive. It doesn’t have to be outrageous. It doesn’t have to be anything other than just giving them what they already wanted to hear."[11] | [11][33][27] |
| Natural News | Formerly NewsTarget, a website for the sale of variousdietary supplements, promotion ofalternative medicine, controversial nutrition and health claims, and variousconspiracy theories, such as "chemtrails",chemophobicclaims (including the purported dangers offluoride in drinking water,anti-perspirants,laundry detergent,monosodium glutamate,aspartame), andpurported health problemscaused by allegedly "toxic" ingredients in vaccines, including thenow-discredited link to autism. | [17][64][64][65][66][67] |
| NBCNews.com.co | Owned by Paul Horner. Mimics the URL, design and logo of NBC News. | [68] |
| Neonnettle.com | This fake news website "tried to connect the random deaths of doctors with conspiracy theories around vaccination" in a phony story from 2017.[69] | [69] |
| News Breaks Here | [70] | |
| The News Buzz Daily | This fake news website mostly consists of celebrity gossip and death hoaxes, but a few of its other stories became popular on social media. | [27] |
| News Examiner | Started in 2015 by Paul Horner, the lead writer of the National Report. This website has been known to mix real news along with its fake news. | [27] |
| News Hound | [35] | |
| The News Nerd | [35] | |
| NewsWatch33 | Starting in April 2015 under the name NewsWatch28 and later becoming NewsWatch33, the website disguises itself as a local television outlet. It has also been known to mix real news along with its fake news in an attempt to circumvent Facebook’s crackdown on them. | [27] |
| The New York Evening(TheNewYorkEvening.com) | This fake news website has spread numerous false claims, including a fake story claiming that Malia Obama had been expelled from Harvard. | [71] |
| Now 8 News (Now8News.com) | Starting in 2015, this fake news website is also designed to look like a local television outlet. Several of the website's fake stories have successfully spread on social media. | .[27][72][73] |
| Prntly | A politically conservativenews site described bySnopes as "a disreputable outlet that has a penchant for publishing both fake news and spurious pro-Trump articles." | [74][75] |
| React 365 | This user-created fake news generator, supposedly for "pranking your friends," had at least two stories that went viral. | [27] |
| Red Flag News | [17] | |
| The Reporterz | Starting in early 2016, this fake news website penned several different hoaxes, including one about a murder over a Twittertrend. | [27] |
| Stuppid | This fake news purveyor specializes in articles with stories that are morally offensive. | [27] |
| TrueTrumpers.com | This fake news website makes "claims about President Donald Trump, former President Barack Obama and Muslims, in particular, as well as click-baiting claims about porn stars and secret tricks for weight loss and whiter teeth."[76] | [76] |
| UndergroundNewsReport.com | According to PolitiFact, "the site purposely writes outlandish stories to trick readers". Launched on February 21, 2017, the website gained more than 1 million page views in its first two weeks. In less than a month the site was sued byWhoopi Goldberg. | [77][78] |
| United Media Publishing | Owned by Jestin Coler. | [33] |
| usatoday.com.co | [33] | |
| washingtonpost.com.co | Originally registered by Jestin Coler. The Washington Post submitted a complaint against Coler's registration of the site withGoDaddy under the UDRP, and in 2015, anarbitral panelruled that that Coler's registration of the domain name was a form of bad-faithcybersquatting(specifically,typosquatting), "through a website that competes with Complainant through the use of fake news. ... The fake news content misleads readers and serves as 'click bait' to drive readers to other sites, or to share the fake news content with others on social networking websites, to generate advertising revenue."[79] | [33] |
| World Truth TV | [17] | |
| World News Daily Report(worldnewsreport.com) | Owned by Jestin Coler. | [80] |
| YourNewsWire.com | Has published dozen of fake stories, such as "claims that the Queen had threatened to abdicate if the UK voted against Brexit."[81] | [81][82] |
For Philippine audiences
Fake news sites have also become rampant for Philippine audiences, especially being shared on social media.[83] It has become so bad that that lawmakers have started filing laws to combat fake news.[84][85]
Some of the links below are now dead, under construction, redirect to other URLs, or have morphed, but are maintained in the list to show how prevalent fake news sites for Philippine audiences are. Another problem is that satire sites are being passed as real news by Philippine social media audiences, or have now lost their satire disclaimers and are being passed off as real news. While many of these sites contain articles featuring international content, a common thread is that they have articles about Rodrigo Duterte and his family, his political allies and opponents, Manny Pacquiao, Philippine politics or Philippine celebrities andshow business.
| Name | URL | Notes | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Jazeera TV | aljazeera-tv.com | Philippine fake news site. Imitates Al Jazeera. Used to redirect to vanguardngr.local-reports.com, now down. | [86][87] |
| All Things Pinoy | allthingspinoy.com | Philippine fake news site. "www.allthingspinoy.com does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information." | [88] |
| Asian Policy Press | asianpolicy.press | Philippine fake news site. "...The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this website..." | [88] |
| Balitang Pinas | www.balitangpinas.net | Philippine fake news site. "Balitangpinas.net makes no representations, warranties, or assurances as to the accuracy, currency or completeness of the content contain on this website or any sites linked to this site." | [89] |
| BBC101, BBC Channel, TV BBC | bbc-channel.com, bbc101.co.uk, tv-bbc.com, | Philippine fake news sites. Imitates BBC. | [89][86][87] |
| BBC Times | bbctimes.com | Philippine fake news site. Imitates BBC | [87] |
| Classified Trends | classifiedtrends.net | Philippine fake news site | [90][88][91] |
| CNN Alive | cnn-alive.com *MALWARE WARNING* | Philippine fake news site. Imitates CNN. WARNING: Anti-virus software blocks the URL with a Malware Alert | [87] |
| TV CNN, CNN Channel, CNN Alive | tv-cnn.com, cnn-channel.com, cnnalive.com | Philippine fake news sites. Imitates CNN | [86][87] |
| Dai1lymail/Mail in One | dai1lymail.co.uk | Down. Imitates Daily Mail | [89] |
| Da1lymail | da1lymail.com | Down. Imitates Daily Mail | [89][86] |
| DDS News Trend | ddsnewstrend.com | Philippine fake news site | [87] |
| Definitely Filipino | buzz.definitelyfilipino.com | Philippine fake news site. No About Us, no Contact Us. | [88] |
| Definitely Filipino | definitelyfilipino.com | Philippine fake news site | [90] |
| Duterte News | dutertenews.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Duterte News (Du30News) | du30news.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Duterte News (Pinoy Speak) | pinoyspeak.info | Philippine fake news site. Posts satirical articles and passes them off as real news. | [91][89] |
| Duterte News Blog | du30newsblog.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Duterte News Info | du30newsinfo.com | Philippine fake news site. Contains fake articles and satirical news passed off as real news. Publishes fake articles about Rodrigo Duterte's critics | [89][91] |
| Media ni Duterte | dutertedefender.com | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| DW-TV3 | dw-tv3.com | Philippine fake news site. Imitates DW-TV. Now down. | [89][86][91] |
| Dyaryo | www.dyaryo.net | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Extreme Readers | extremereaders.com | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| FilipiNews PH | filipinewsph.net | Philippine fake news site. "FilipiNews PH does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information." | [90][88][91][92] |
| Fox Channel | fox-channel.com | Philippine fake news site. Imitates Fox News | [86][87] |
| Get Real Philippiones | getrealphilippines.com | Philippine fake news site | [90] |
| GMA TV | gma-tv.com | Philippine fake news site. Imitates GMA 7. Now Down. | [93][86] |
| Guard1an | theguard1an.com | Philippine fake news site. No About Us, no contact us. Imitates The Guardian. | [90][86][91] |
| Hot News Philippines | hotnewsphil.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| I Am Pilipino | www.iampilipino.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| International Latest Updates | internationallatestupdates.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site. Redirect from trendingnewsphfile.net. | [91] |
| Kalye Pinoy | kalyepinoy.com | Philippine fake news site. Now Down/Under Construction. | [90][91][92] |
| Leak News Ph | www.leaknewsph.com | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| Metro | metro-uk.com | Philippine fake news site. No About Us. Imitates metro.co.uk | [86][87] |
| Netizens PH | netizensph.com | Philippine fake news site | [90] |
| News Feed Society | www.newsfeedsociety.tk | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Newsfile | newsfileph.com | Philippine fake news site. Carried fake stories. | [87] |
| News Info Learn | newsinfolearn.com | Philippine fake news site. "...www.newsinfolearn.com does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information..." | [88] |
| News Media PH | newsmediaph.com | Philippine fake news site. No about Us. | [90][87][91] |
| News Titans | newstitans.com | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| News Trend Ph | newstrendph.com | Philippine fake news site. Related to "DuterteMedia" Facebook page. No About Us, No Contact Us. | [88][92] |
| OKD2 | okd2.com | Philippine fake news site. Now redirects to thephpride.blogspot.com | [89] |
| Philippine News Blog | ilikeyouquotes.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Philippine News Portal | www.philnewsportal.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Philstar.i-telecast.com | philstar.i-telecast.com | Philippine fake news site. Imitates The Philippine Star. Down. | [86][87] |
| Pilipinas Online Updates | www.pilipinasonlineupdates.com | Philippine fake news site. Takes some of its articles from Balitang Pinas. "Pilipinas Online Updates makes no representations, warranties, or assurances as to the accuracy, currency or completeness of the content contain (sic) onthis website or any sites linked to this site" | [89][92] |
| Pinoy Article | pinoyarticle.com | Philippine fake news site. Now down. | [89] |
| Pinoy Freedom Wall | pinoyfreedomwall.com | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| Pinoy News Blogger | pinoynewsblogger.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Pinoy Pride | thephpride.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site | [90] |
| Pinoy World | www.pinoyworld.net | Philippine fake news site | [91][92] |
| PRRD News | phppoliticsnews.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Pinoy Trending | pinoytrending.altervista.org | Philippine fake news site. No about us, contact info. | [90][88][92] |
| Pinoy Trending News | pinoytrendingnews.net | Philippine fake news site. "...Information on this site may contain errors and inaccuracies..." | [90][88][92] |
| Pinoy Tribune | pinoytribune.com | Philippine fake news site. "...Pinoytribune.com does not guarantee the legitimacy, accuracy, currency or completeness of the content of its website..." | [87] |
| Pinoy Viral Issues | pinoyviralissues.net | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| Pinoy Viral News | pinoyviralnews.com | Philippine fake news site | [90] |
| Pinoy World | pinoyworld.net | Philippine fake news site. Publishes articles from other fake news sites. | [90][87] |
| Public Trending | publictrending.net | Philippine fake news site. "...The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site." | [88][90] |
| QWAZK | qwazk.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site | [91] |
| Radio GTV | radiogtv.com | Philippine fake news site. Down. | [87] |
| Social News PH | www.socialnewsph.com | Philippine fake news site. Connected to the Facebook pages SNP – Social News Philippines and President Duterte Random Photos."...does not give assurances as to the accuracy, completeness and currency of its content..." | [90][89][91] |
| Taho News | tahonews.com | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| Tartey Viral | tartey.com | Philippine fake news site. Contains articles obtained from News Trend PH, which also publishes fake news. No About US, no Contact Us. "makes no representations, warranties, or assurances as to the accuracy or completeness of the content" | [89][91] |
| TheVolatilian | thevolatilian.com | Philippine fake news site | [90][91] |
| Thinking Pinoy | thinkingpinoy.net | Philippine fake news site. Posted multiple fake news.[94][95] | [90] |
| The T1mes | thet1mes.com | Philippine fake news site. Imitates The Times | [89][86] |
| Today in Manila | todayinmanila.ga | Philippine fake news site. No About Us, no Contact Us. | [88] |
| Trending Balita | trendingbalita.info | Philippine fake news site. Now Down/Under Construction. | [90][91] |
| Trending News Portal | trendingnewsportal.net.ph, trendingnewsportal-ph.blogspot.com | Philippine fake news site. "Trending News Portal makes no representations, warranties, or assurances as to the accuracy, currency or completenesss of the content contain on this website or and sites linked to this site". Now Down/Under Construction. | [90][88][91] |
| Trending Viral | trendingviral.tk | Philippine fake news site. "The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site.... will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor the availability of this information..." | [88] |
| TrendTitan | trendtitan.com | Philippine fake news site. Now Down/Under Construction. | [90] |
| Updater24 | updater24.com | Philippine fake news site. Posted several fake sites. Down. | [89] |
| Usa Radio | usa-radio.com | Philippine fake news site | [87] |
| XOLXOL | xolxol.ph | Philippine fake news site | [92] |
