The ''Denver Guardian'' was a

fake news website Fake news websites (also referred to as hoax news websites) are websites on the Internet that deliberately publish fake news—hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be news, real news—often using social media to drive web traffic ...

, which became known from a popular untrue story about

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

posted on the site on November 5, 2016, three days before the

2016 U.S. presidential election Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and ...

, which Clinton lost. The story, entitled "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide", alleged that an FBI agent investigating Clinton had been found dead in a Maryland house fire. The story was shared on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

(a news source for "44 percent of U.S. adults") more than half a million times and earned more than 15.5 million impressions. According to a ''

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in the Denver metropolitan area. it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 mil ...

'' newspaper story on the ''Denver Guardian'' and the Clinton article, *While "The Guardian" claimed to be Denver's "oldest" news source, the site's domain was first registered only a few months before in July 2016; *The story on Clinton appeared to be the only article on the website (it was "the only story showing up under the "News" section and all other sections are turning up errors"); *While the story quoted a "Walkerville Police Chief Pat Frederick", there is no Walkerville, Maryland. There is a

Walkersville, Maryland Walkersville is a town in Frederick County, Maryland, United States. The population was 5,800 at the 2010 census. History Crum Road Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Woodsboro and Frederick Turnpike C ...

, but the city does not have a police department. The address the site listed for "The Guardian" newsroom was actually a parking lot. The site was registered anonymously and built using

WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...

, but an investigator employed by

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

found the site was operated by Jestin Coler, the founder, and CEO of Disinfomedia and owner of several other

fake news Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person ...

sites. As of March 27, 2017, the site still existed but had no news or any other content. (14248756)

References

Fake news websites Internet properties established in 2016 {{Website-stub

See also

References