Fake News Websites

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 real news—often using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect. Unlike news satire, these websites deliberately seek to be perceived as legitimate and taken at face value, often for financial or political gain.

Fake news websites monetize their content by exploiting the vulnerabilities of programmatic ad trading, which is a type of online advertising in which ads are traded through machine-to-machine auction in a real-time bidding system.

Fake news websites have promoted political falsehoods in India, Germany, Indonesia and the Philippines, Sweden, Mexico, Myanmar, and the United States. Many sites originate in, or are promoted by, Russia, or North Macedonia among others. Some media analysts have seen them as a threat to democracy. 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.

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. Sweden's Ministry of Defence tasked its Civil Contingencies Agency with combating fake news from Russia. 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. German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of the societal impact of "fake sites, bots, trolls".

Fraudulent articles spread through social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and several officials within the U.S. Intelligence Community said that Russia was engaged in spreading fake news. Computer security company FireEye concluded that Russia used social media to spread fake news stories as part of a cyberwarfare campaign. Google and Facebook banned fake sites from using online advertising. 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. U.S. President Barack Obama said a disregard for facts created a "dust cloud of nonsense". Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Alex Younger called fake news propaganda online dangerous for democratic nations.

Definition

''The New York Times'' has defined "fake news" on the internet as fictitious articles deliberately fabricated to deceive readers, generally with the goal of profiting through clickbait. PolitiFact has described fake news as fabricated content designed to fool readers and subsequently made viral through the Internet to crowds that increase its dissemination. Others have taken as constitutive the "systemic features inherent in the design of the sources and channels through which fake news proliferates", for example by playing to the audience's cognitive biases, heuristics, and partisan affiliation. Some fake news websites use website spoofing, structured to make visitors believe they are visiting mainstream media sources like ABC News or MSNBC.

Fake news maintained a presence on the internet and in tabloid journalism in the years prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Before the election campaign involving Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, fake news had not impacted the election process and subsequent events to such a high degree. Subsequent to the 2016 election, the issue of fake news turned into a political weapon, with supporters of left-wing politics saying that supporters of right-wing politics spread false news, while the latter claimed that they were being "censored". Due to these back-and-forth complaints, the definition of fake news as used for such polemics has become more vague.

Pre-Internet history

Unethical journalistic practices existed in printed media for hundreds of years before the advent of the Internet. Yellow journalism, reporting from a standard which is devoid of integrity and professional ethics, was pervasive during the time period in history known as the Gilded Age, and unethical journalists would engage in fraud by fabricating stories, interviews, and made-up names for scholars. During the 1890s, the spread of this unethical news sparked violence and conflicts. Both Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst fomented yellow journalism in order to increase profits, which helped lead to misunderstandings which became partially responsible for the outset of the Spanish–American War in 1898. J.B. Montgomery-M'Govern wrote a column harshly critical of "fake news" in 1898, saying that what characterized "fake news" was sensationalism and "the publication of articles absolutely false, which tend to mislead an ignorant or unsuspecting public."

A radio broadcast from Gleiwitz by German soldier Karl Hornack, pretending to be a Polish invader who had captured the station, was taken at face value by other stations, in Germany and abroad, fueling Adolf Hitler's declaration of war on Poland the next day.
According to ''USA Today'', newspapers which have a history of commonly publishing fake news have included ''Globe'', ''Weekly World News'', and ''The National Enquirer''.

Characteristics

Common characteristics of fake news websites, as noted by many fact-checkers and journalists, are sorted into several categories:

# Source credibility
#* Impostor sites that appear to be legitimate news sites, newspapers, television stations or radio stations, often using spoofed URLs, typosquatting or otherwise imitating the layout and graphics of established news sites.
#* Impersonating defunct news sources.
#* A disclaimer stating that its content is fictitious (especially on satire sites), or alternatively, no disclaimer at all.
#* Little to no contact information.
#* Little to no information about the source's "mission, staff members or physical location".
#* A site name that has been changed after being repeatedly corrected by fact-checking organizations.
#* "A state-controlled site, a private blog or ... a site containing satirical content".
#* No disclosure of editorial responsibility.
#* No "legal notice for any commercial offer".
#* Obscure or private website registration, such as using a proxy service to purchase the domain.
#* Fabricated or incoherent domain registration metadata.
#* Established in a news desert or otherwise has low local news coverage due to mass layoffs of journalists.
#* The site includes both true and false content.
# Article headlines
#* Clickbait headlines, with further signs of content with questionable veracity in the article text itself.
# Article bylines
#* Fictitious author.
#* Recycled photo in a different website by a different author.
#* No byline at all.
#* The author may have a reputation for spreading false information.
#* A real claimed author, but who typically writes about a different topic than in the given article.
#* Hidden byline.
# Article citations
#* The article cites sources that do not support the claim(s) made. For example, "quotes are abbreviated or taken out of context".
#* The article cites sources that are fictitious.
#* The article fabricates quotes.
#* The article makes a claim that is not covered in credible sources.
#* The article contains false or out-of-context statistics.
#* The article is a repost of a story from another site (typically a satire/parody or impostor site), "with or without attribution" and often "omitting indications the tory ismade up".
#* The article contains out-of-context images.
#* The article contains fabricated images.
#* The article cites unreliable or questionable sources.
#* The article copies content from established news outlets without proper attribution.
#* Use of large language models to generate content, sometimes evidenced by the inclusion of text prompts, LLM output phrases and/or hallucinations in the articles themselves.
# Datetimes
#* Taking a true news story out of context, for example, by reposting a story about an older event and claiming that it is directly related to an event happening currently.
#* Reposting a story from a credible source with a different header and publication date.
# Psychological biases
#* Stories are written to fit a target audience's confirmation biases.
#* Stories contain content that appeals to emotions or is meant to stimulate psychological triggers, including anger and even violence.
# Story syntax
#* The story contains misspellings or "sensational wording".
#* Use of article spinning.
# Claim credibility
#* The story contains incoherent or unrealistic claims or images.
#* Lack of evidence to support given claim(s).
#* Presence of scams.
# Website layout
#* A "dubious" or "unprofessional-looking" layout.
#* "Excessive advertising", especially from services such as Content.ad, RevContent.com, or AdStyle.
#* Website logo created by text-to-image model.
#* Presence of malware (including scripts for cryptocurrency mining).
# Funding
#* "Content spaid for by a company or politician or other potentially biased source".
#* Incomplete or obscured disclaimer on funding or sponsorship.

Fake news website network identification

Many fake news websites can be assessed as likely being part of the same network campaign if some combination of the following are true:

* They share the same Google Analytics account
* They share the same Google AdSense account
* They share the same IP address(es)
* They share the same Gravatar ID
* They share the same New Relic ID
* They share the same Quantcast ID
* They share the same Matomo ID Tracker
* Link spam: They refer to each other's domains
* They publish the exact or near-exact same content, especially content that has been plagiarized from other sources
* They have the same or similar designs (layouts, bylines, privacy policies, "About" pages, etc.)
* They have the same owner(s) or hosting provider, based on domain registration information

* They use a technique called "domain hopping" - repeatedly switching domain names to stay ahead of advertising blacklists on social media.

Prominent sources

Prominent among fraudulent news sites include false propaganda created by individuals in the countries of Russia, North Macedonia, Romania, and the United States.

North Macedonia

Much of the fake news during the 2016 U.S. presidential election season was traced to adolescents in North Macedonia, specifically Veles. It is a town of 50,000 in the middle of the country, with high unemployment, where the average wage is $4,800. The income from fake news was characterized by ''NBC News'' as a gold rush. Adults supported this income, saying they were happy the youths were working. The mayor of Veles, Slavcho Chadiev, said he was not bothered by their actions, as they were not against Macedonian law and their finances were taxable. Chadiev said he was happy if deception from Veles influenced the results of the 2016 U.S. election in favor of Trump.

''BuzzFeed News'' and ''The Guardian'' separately investigated and found teenagers in Veles created over 100 sites spreading fake news stories supportive of Donald Trump. The teenagers experimented with left slanted fake stories about Bernie Sanders, but found that pro-Trump fictions were more popular. Prior to the 2016 election the teenagers gained revenues from fake medical advice sites. One youth named Alex stated, in an August 2016 interview with ''The Guardian'', that this fraud would remain profitable regardless of who won the election. Alex explained he plagiarized material for articles by copying and pasting from other websites. This could net them thousands of dollars daily, but they averaged only a few thousand per month.

The Associated Press (AP) interviewed an 18-year-old in Veles about his tactics. A Google Analytics analysis of his traffic showed more than 650,000 views in one week. He plagiarized pro-Trump stories from a right-wing site called ''The Political Insider''. He said he did not care about politics, and published fake news to gain money and experience. The AP used DomainTools to confirm the teenager was behind fake sites, and determined there were about 200 websites tracked to Veles focused on U.S. news, many of which mostly contained plagiarized legitimate news to create an appearance of credibility.

''NBC News'' also interviewed an 18-year-old there. Dmitri (a pseudonym) was one of the most profitable fake news operators in town, and said about 300 people in Veles wrote for fake sites. Dmitri said he gained over $60,000 during the six months prior through doing this, more than both his parents' earnings. Dmitri said his main dupes were supporters of Trump. He said after the 2016 U.S. election he continued to earn significant amounts. There is no indication that the Macedonian Fake News ring was particularly effective during the U.S. 2020 presidential election.

Romania

"Ending the Fed", a popular purveyor of fraudulent reports, was run by a 24-year-old named Ovidiu Drobota out of Oradea, Romania, who boasted to ''Inc. magazine'' about being more popular than mainstream media. Established in March 2016, "Ending the Fed" was responsible for a false story in August 2016 that incorrectly stated Fox News had fired journalist Megyn Kelly—the story was briefly prominent on Facebook on its "Trending News" section. "Ending the Fed" held four out of the 10 most popular fake articles on Facebook related to the 2016 U.S. election in the prior three months before the election itself. The Facebook page for the website, called "End the Feed", had 350,000 "likes" in November 2016. After being contacted by ''Inc. magazine'', Drobota stated he was proud of the impact he had on the 2016 U.S. election in favor of his preferred candidate Donald Trump. According to Alexa Internet, "Ending the Fed" garnered approximately 3.4 million views over a 30-day-period in November 2016. Drobota stated the majority of incoming traffic is from Facebook. He said his normal line of work before starting "Ending the Fed" included web development and search engine optimization.

Russia

Internet Research Agency

Beginning in fall 2014, ''The New Yorker'' writer Adrian Chen performed a six-month investigation into Russian propaganda dissemination online by the Internet Research Agency (IRA). Yevgeny Prigozhin (Evgeny Prigozhin), a close associate of Vladimir Putin, was behind the operation which hired hundreds of individuals to work in Saint Petersburg. The organization became regarded as a "troll farm", a term used to refer to propaganda efforts controlling many accounts online with the aim of artificially providing a semblance of a grassroots organization. Chen reported that Internet trolling was used by the Russian government as a tactic largely after observing the social media organization of the 2011 protests against Putin.

European Union response

In 2015, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe released an analysis critical of disinformation campaigns by Russia masked as news. This was intended to interfere with Ukraine relations with Europe after the removal of former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych. According to ''Deutsche Welle'', similar tactics were used in the 2016 U.S. elections. The European Union created a taskforce to deal with Russian disinformation. The taskforce, East StratCom Team, had 11 people including Russian speakers. In November 2016, the EU voted to increase the group's funding. In November 2016, the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a resolution warning of the use by Russia of tools including: "pseudo-news agencies ... social media and internet trolls" as disinformation to weaken democratic values. The resolution requested EU analysts investigate, explaining member nations needed to be wary of disinformation. The resolution condemned Russian sources for publicizing "absolutely fake" news reports. The tally on 23 November 2016 passed by a margin of 304 votes to 179.

United States

The U.S. State Department planned to use a unit called the Counter-Disinformation Team, formed with the intention of combating disinformation from the Russian government, and that it was disbanded in September 2015 after department heads missed the scope of propaganda before the 2016 U.S. election. The U.S. State Department put eight months into developing the unit before scrapping it. It would have been a reboot of the Active Measures Working Group set up by Reagan Administration. The Counter-Disinformation Team was set up under the Bureau of International Information Programs. Work began in 2014, with the intention to combat propaganda from Russian sources such as the RT network (formerly known as Russia Today). U.S. Intelligence officials explained to former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer John R. Schindler that the Obama Administration decided to cancel the unit as they were afraid of antagonizing Russia. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Richard Stengel was point person for the unit before it was canceled. Stengel previously wrote about disinformation by RT.

Internet trolls shift focus to Trump

Adrian Chen observed a pattern in December 2015 where pro-Russian accounts became supportive of 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump. Andrew Weisburd and Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow and senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, Clint Watts, wrote for ''The Daily Beast'' in August 2016 that Russian propaganda fabricated articles were popularized by social media. Weisburd and Watts documented how disinformation spread from Russia Today and Sputnik News, "the two biggest Russian state-controlled media organizations publishing in English", to pro-Russian accounts on Twitter. Citing research by Chen, Weisburd and Watts compared Russian tactics during the 2016 U.S. election to Soviet Union Cold War strategies. They referenced the 1992 United States Information Agency report to Congress, which warned about Russian propaganda called active measures. They concluded social media made active measures easier. Institute of International Relations Prague senior fellow and scholar on Russian intelligence, Mark Galeotti, agreed the Kremlin operations were a form of active measures. The most strident Internet promoters of Trump were not U.S. citizens but paid Russian propagandists. ''The Guardian'' estimated their number to be in the "low thousands" in November 2016.

Weisburd and Watts collaborated with colleague J.M. Berger and published a follow-up to their ''Daily Beast'' article in online magazine ''War on the Rocks'', titled: "Trolling for Trump: How Russia is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy". They researched 7,000 pro-Trump accounts over a -year period. Their research detailed trolling techniques to denigrate critics of Russian activities in Syria, and proliferate lies about Clinton's health. Watts said the propaganda targeted the alt-right, the right wing, and fascist groups. After each presidential debate, thousands of Twitter bots used hashtag #Trumpwon to change perceptions.

In November 2016 the Foreign Policy Research Institute stated Russian propaganda exacerbated criticism of Clinton and support for Trump. The strategy involved social media, paid Internet trolls, botnets, and websites in order to denigrate Clinton.

U.S. intelligence analysis

Computer security company FireEye concluded Russia used social media as a weapon to influence the U.S. election. FireEye Chairman David DeWalt said the 2016 operation was a new development in cyberwarfare by Russia. FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia stated Russian cyberwarfare changed after fall 2014, from covert to overt tactics with decreased operational security. Bellingcat analyst Aric Toler explained fact-checking only drew further attention to the fake news problem.

U.S. Intelligence agencies debated why Putin chose summer 2016 to escalate active measures. Prior to the election, U.S. national security officials said they were anxious about Russia tampering with U.S. news. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said after the 2011–13 Russian protests, Putin lost self-confidence, and responded with the propaganda operation. Former CIA officer Patrick Skinner said the goal was to spread uncertainty. House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff commented on Putin's aims, and said U.S. intelligence were concerned with Russian propaganda. Speaking about disinformation that appeared in Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland, Schiff said there was an increase of the same behavior in the U.S.

U.S. intelligence officials stated in November 2016 they believed Russia engaged in spreading fake news, and the FBI released a statement saying they were investigating. Two U.S. intelligence officials each told ''BuzzFeed News'' they "believe Russia helped disseminate fake and propagandized news as part of a broader effort to influence and undermine the presidential election". The U.S. intelligence sources stated this involved "dissemination of completely fake news stories". They told ''BuzzFeed'' the FBI investigation specifically focused on why "Russia had engaged in spreading false or misleading information".

By country

Fake news has influenced political discourse in multiple countries, including Germany, Indonesia, Philippines, Sweden, China, Myanmar, and the United States.

Austria

Politicians in Austria dealt with the impact of fake news and its spread on social media after the 2016 presidential campaign in the country. In December 2016, a court in Austria issued an injunction on Facebook Europe, mandating it block negative postings related to Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, Austrian Green Party Chairwoman. According to ''The Washington Post'' the postings to Facebook about her "appeared to have been spread via a fake profile" and directed derogatory epithets towards the Austrian politician. The derogatory postings were likely created by the identical fake profile that had previously been utilized to attack Alexander van der Bellen, who won the election for President of Austria.

Brazil

Brazil faced increasing influence from fake news after the 2014 re-election of President Dilma Rousseff and Rousseff's subsequent impeachment in August 2016. In the week surrounding one of the impeachment votes, 3 out of the 5 most-shared articles on Facebook in Brazil were fake. In 2015, reporter Tai Nalon resigned from her position at Brazilian newspaper '' Folha de S.Paulo'' in order to start the first fact-checking website in Brazil, called Aos Fatos (To The Facts). Nalon told ''The Guardian'' there was a great deal of fake news, and hesitated to compare the problem to that experienced in the U.S.

Canada

Fake news online was brought to the attention of Canadian politicians in November 2016, as they debated helping assist local newspapers. Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre Hedy Fry specifically discussed fake news as an example of ways in which publishers on the Internet are less accountable than print media. Discussion in parliament contrasted increase of fake news online with downsizing of Canadian newspapers and the impact for democracy in Canada. Representatives from Facebook Canada attended the meeting and told members of Parliament they felt it was their duty to assist individuals gather data online.

China

Fake news during the 2016 U.S. election spread to China. Articles popularized within the United States were translated into Chinese and spread within China. The government of China used the growing problem of fake news as a rationale for increasing Internet censorship in China in November 2016. China then published an editorial in its Communist Party newspaper '' The Global Times'' called: "Western Media's Crusade Against Facebook", and criticized "unpredictable" political problems posed by freedoms enjoyed by users of Twitter, Google, and Facebook. China government leaders meeting in Wuzhen at the third World Internet Conference in November 2016 said fake news in the U.S. election justified adding more curbs to free and open use of the Internet. China Deputy Minister Ren Xianliang, official at the Cyberspace Administration of China, said increasing online participation led to "harmful information" and fraud. Kam Chow Wong, a former Hong Kong law enforcement official and criminal justice professor at Xavier University, praised attempts in the U.S. to patrol social media. ''The Wall Street Journal'' noted China's themes of Internet censorship became more relevant at the World Internet Conference due to the outgrowth of fake news.

Finland

Officials from 11 countries held a meeting in Helsinki in November 2016, in order to plan the formation of a center to combat disinformation cyber-warfare including spread of fake news on social media. The center is planned to be located in Helsinki and include efforts from 10 countries with participation from Sweden, Germany, Finland, and the U.S. Prime Minister of Finland Juha Sipilä planned to deal with the center in spring 2017 with a motion before the Parliament of Finland. Jori Arvonen, Deputy Secretary of State for EU Affairs, said cyberwarfare became an increased problem in 2016, and included hybrid cyber-warfare intrusions into Finland from Russia and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Arvonen cited examples including fake news online, disinformation, and the "little green men" of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

France

France saw an uptick in amounts of disinformation and propaganda, primarily in the midst of election cycles. ''Le Monde'' fact-checking division "Les décodeurs" was headed by Samuel Laurent, who told ''The Guardian'' in December 2016 the upcoming French presidential election campaign in spring 2017 would face problems from fake news. The country faced controversy regarding fake websites providing false information about abortion. The government's lower parliamentary body moved forward with intentions to ban such fake sites. Laurence Rossignol, women's minister for France, informed parliament though the fake sites look neutral, in actuality their intentions were specifically targeted to give women fake information. During the 10-year period preceding 2016, France was witness to an increase in popularity of far-right alternative news sources called the ''fachosphere'' ("facho" referring to fascist); known as the . According to sociologist Antoine Bevort, citing data from Alexa Internet rankings, the most consulted political websites in France included ''Égalité et Réconciliation'', ', and ''Les Moutons Enragés''. These sites increased skepticism towards mainstream media from both left and right perspectives.

Germany

German Chancellor Angela Merkel lamented the problem of fraudulent news reports in a November 2016 speech, days after announcing her campaign for a fourth term as leader of her country. In a speech to the German parliament, Merkel was critical of such fake sites, saying they harmed political discussion. Merkel called attention to the need of government to deal with Internet trolls, bots, and fake news websites. She warned that such fraudulent news websites were a force increasing the power of populist extremism. Merkel called fraudulent news a growing phenomenon that might need to be regulated in the future. Germany's foreign intelligence agency Federal Intelligence Service Chief, , warned of the potential for cyberattacks by Russia in the 2017 German election. He said the cyberattacks would take the form of the intentional spread of disinformation. Kahl said the goal is to increase chaos in political debates. Germany's domestic intelligence agency Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, said sabotage by Russian intelligence was a present threat to German information security.

India

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director at Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, thinks that "the problems of disinformation in a society like India might be more sophisticated and more challenging than they are in the West". The damage caused due to fake news on social media has increased due to the growth of the internet penetration in India, which has risen from 137 million internet users in 2012 to over 600 million in 2019. India is the largest market for WhatsApp, with over 230 million users, and as a result one of the main platforms on which fake news is spread. One of the main problems is of receivers believing anything sent to them over social media due to lack of awareness. Various initiatives and practices have been started and adopted to curb the spread and impact of fake news. Fake news is also spread through Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter.

According to a report by ''The Guardian'', the Indian media research agency CMS stated that the cause of spread of fake news was that India "lacked (a) media policy for verification". Additionally, law enforcement officers have arrested reporters and journalists for "creating fictitious articles", especially when the articles were controversial.

In India, fake news has been spread primarily by the right-wing political outfits. A study published in ''ThePrint'' claimed that on Twitter, there were at least 17,000 accounts spreading fake news to favour the BJP, while around 147 accounts were spreading fake news to favour the Indian National Congress. Similarly, the IT Cell of the BJP has been accused of spreading fake news against the party's political opponents, religious minorities, and any campaigns against the party. The IT Cells of the BJP, Congress and other political parties have been accused of spreading fake news against the party's political opponents and any campaigns against the party. The RSS mouthpiece Organizer has also been accused of misleading reports.

Prominent fake news-spreading websites and online resources include OpIndia, TFIPost (previously, The Frustrated Indian) and Postcard News.

Indonesia and Philippines

Fraudulent news has been particularly problematic in Indonesia and the Philippines, where social media has an outsized political influence. According to media analysts, developing countries with new access to social media and democracy felt the fake news problem to a larger extent. In some developing countries, Facebook gives away smartphone data free of charge for Facebook and media sources, but at the same time does not provide the user with Internet access to fact-checking websites.

Iran

On 8 October 2020, Bloomberg reported that 92 websites used by Iran to spread misinformation were seized by the United States government.

Italy

Between 1 October and 30 November 2016, ahead of the Italian constitutional referendum, five out of ten referendum-related stories with most social media participation were hoaxes or inaccurate. Of the three stories with the most social media attention, two were fake. Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi met with U.S. President Obama and leaders of Europe at a meeting in Berlin, Germany in November 2016, and spoke about the fake news problem. Renzi hosted discussions on Facebook Live in an effort to rebut falsities online. The influence became so heavy that a senior adviser to Renzi began a defamation complaint on an anonymous Twitter user who had used the screenname "Beatrice di Maio".

The Five Star Movement (M5S), an Italian political party founded by Beppe Grillo, managed fake news sites amplifying support for Russian news, propaganda, and inflamed conspiracy theories. The party's site ''TzeTze'' had 1.2 million Facebook fans and shared fake news and pieces supportive of Putin cited to Russia-owned sources including ''Sputnik News''. ''TzeTze'' plagiarized the Russian sources, and copied article titles and content from ''Sputnik''. TzeTze, another site critical of Renzi called ''La Cosa'', and a blog by Grillo—were managed by the company Casaleggio Associati which was started by Five Star Movement co-founder Gianroberto Casaleggio. Casaleggio's son Davide Casaleggio owns and manages ''TzeTze'' and ''La Cosa'', and medical advice website ''La Fucina'' which markets anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and medical cure-all methods. Grillo's blog, Five Star Movement fake sites use the same IP addresses, Google Analytics and Google AdSense.

Cyberwarfare against Renzi increased, and Italian newspaper ''La Stampa'' brought attention to false stories by ''Russia Today'' which wrongly asserted a pro-Renzi rally in Rome was actually an anti-Renzi rally. In October 2016, the Five Star Movement disseminated a video from Kremlin-aligned ''Russia Today'' which falsely reported displaying thousands of individuals protesting the 4 December 2016 scheduled referendum in Italy—when in fact the video that went on to 1.5 million views showed supporters of the referendum. President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini, stated: "Fake news is a critical issue and we can't ignore it. We have to act now." Boldrini met on 30 November 2016 with vice president of public policy in Europe for Facebook Richard Allan to voice concerns about fake news. She said Facebook needed to admit they were a media company.

In 2022 the renowned Italian magazine Panorama brought attention to fake news published by the website "Open di Enrico Mentana" which repeatedly reported a number of false stories with regard to the Russo-Ukrainian war.
These fake news were eventually rejected by Alina Dubovksa, journalist of the Ukrainian newspaper ''Public'', also due to the lack of evidences, by Catalina Marchant de Abreu, journalist of France 24, due to unfoundedness of the stories, as well as by Oleksiy Mykolaiovych Arestovych, an Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mexico

In Mexico, fake exit polls have been documented.

Moldova

Amid the 2018 local elections in Moldova a doctored video with mistranslated subtitles purported to show that the a pro-Europe party candidate for mayor of Chișinău (pop. 685,900), the capital of Moldova had proposed to lease the city of Chișinău to the UAE for 50 years. The video was watched more than 300,000 times on Facebook and almost 250,000 times on the Russian social network site OK.ru, which is popular among Moldova's Russian-speaking population.

Myanmar

In 2015, fake stories using unrelated photographs and fraudulent captions were shared online in support of the Rohingya. Fake news negatively affected individuals in Myanmar, leading to a rise in violence against Muslims in the country. Online participation surged from one percent to 20 percent of Myanmar's total populace from 2014 to 2016. Fake stories from Facebook were reprinted in paper periodicals called ''Facebook'' and ''The Internet''. False reporting related to practitioners of Islam in the country was directly correlated with increased attacks on people of the religion in Myanmar. Fake news fictitiously stated believers in Islam acted out in violence at Buddhist locations. ''BuzzFeed News'' documented a direct relationship between the fake news and violence against Muslim people. It noted countries that were relatively newer to Internet exposure were more vulnerable to the problems of fake news and fraud.

Pakistan

Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the Minister of Defence of Pakistan, threatened to attack Israel with nuclear weapons on Twitter after a false story claiming that Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Ministry of Defense, said "If Pakistan send ground troops into Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack."

Poland

In 2016 Polish historian noted fake news websites had infiltrated Poland through anti-establishment and right-wing focused sources that copied content from ''Russia Today''. Targalski observed there existed about 20 specific fake news websites in Poland which spread Russian disinformation in the form of fake news. One example cited was the false claim that Ukraine had claimed that the Polish city of Przemyśl was occupied by Poland. In 2020 fake news websites related to the COVID-19 pandemic have been identified and officially labelled as such by the Polish Ministry of Health.

Sweden

The Swedish Security Service issued a report in 2015 identifying propaganda from Russia infiltrating Sweden with the objective to amplify pro-Russian propaganda and inflame societal conflicts. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), part of the Ministry of Defence of Sweden, identified fake news reports targeting Sweden in 2016 which originated from Russia. Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency official Mikael Tofvesson stated a pattern emerged where views critical of Sweden were constantly repeated. The MSB identified ''Russia Today'' and ''Sputnik News'' as significant fake news purveyors. As a result of growth in this propaganda in Sweden, the MSB planned to hire six additional security officials to fight back against the campaign of fraudulent information.

Taiwan

In a report in December 2015 by ''The China Post'', a fake video shared online showed people a light show purportedly made at the Shihmen Reservoir. The Northern Region Water Resources Office confirmed there was no light show at the reservoir and the event had been fabricated. The fraud led to an increase in tourist visits to the actual attraction.

Ukraine

''Deutsche Welle'' interviewed the founder of Stopfake.org in 2014 about the website's efforts to debunk fake news in Ukraine, including media portrayal of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Co-founder Margot Gontar began the site in March 2014, and it was aided by volunteers. In 2014, ''Deutsche Welle'' awarded the fact-checker website with the People's Choice Award for Russian in its ceremony The BOBs, recognizing excellence in advocacy on the Internet. Gontar highlighted an example debunked by the website, where a fictitious "Doctor Rozovskii" supposedly told ''The Guardian'' pro-Ukraine individuals refused to allow him to tend to injured in fighting with Russian supporters in 2014. Stopfake.org exposed the event was fabricated—there actually was no individual named "Doctor Rozovskii", and found the Facebook photo distributed with the incident was of a different individual from Russia with a separate identity. Former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych's ouster from power created instability, and in 2015 the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe concluded Russian disinformation campaigns used fake news to disrupt relations between Europe and Ukraine.

United Kingdom

Labour MP Michael Dugher was assigned by Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson in November 2016 to investigate the impact of fake news spread through social media. Watson said they would work with Twitter and Facebook to root out clear-cut circumstances of "downright lies". Watson wrote an article for ''The Independent'' where he suggested methods to respond to fake news, including Internet-based societies which fact-check in a manner modeled after Wikipedia. Minister for Culture, Matthew Hancock, stated the British government would investigate the impact of fake news and its pervasiveness on social media websites. Watson stated he welcomed the investigation into fake news by the government. On 8 December 2016, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Alex Younger delivered a speech to journalists at the MI6 headquarters where he called fake news and propaganda damaging to democracy. Younger said the mission of MI6 was to combat propaganda and fake news in order to deliver to his government a strategic advantage in the information warfare arena, and assist other nations including European countries. He called such methods of fake news propaganda online as a "fundamental threat to our sovereignty". Younger said all nations that hold democratic values should feel the same worry over fake news.

United States

2016 election cycle

Fraudulent stories during the 2016 U.S. presidential election popularized on Facebook included a viral post that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump, and another that actor Denzel Washington "backs Trump in the most epic way possible". Donald Trump's son and campaign surrogate Eric Trump, top national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, and then-campaign managers Kellyanne Conway and Corey Lewandowski shared fake news stories during the campaign.

Misuse of the term

After the 2016 election, Republican politicians and conservative media began to appropriate the term by using it to describe any news they see as hostile to their agenda, according to ''The New York Times'', which cited Breitbart News, Rush Limbaugh and supporters of Donald Trump as dismissing true mainstream news reports, and any news they do not like as "fake news".

U.S. response to Russia in Syria

The Russian state-operated newswire RIA Novosti, known as Sputnik International, reported fake news and fabricated statements by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest