Talk:List of fake news websites/Archive 2

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Add CNN.com

No reliable independent source identifies CNN as fake news. The source for this characterisation is well known, and well documented as unreliable. Guy (Help!) 10:27, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

According to the lede, this is simply "a list of websites that have been called fake news sites." The President-Elect of the United States this evening called CNN a fake news site. Okay to add? BlueSalix (talk) 01:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Probably not. We need a reliable source that corroborates this claim, and not just through an opinion piece. The lede probably needs to be improved. FallingGravity 01:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the President-Elect of the United States is not a reliable source. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:47, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
The source is the Daily Beast. The Daily Beast reported that cnn.com was "called a fake news site." According to the artilce, this is just a list of "of websites that have been called fake news sites." A RS has established that someone called cnn.com a fake news site. BlueSalix (talk) 02:05, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
No, we don't. The inclusion criteria establishes that this is not an article of verified claims, this is an article of claims. If a claim is made, and we know by RS that the clalim was made, under the inclusion criteria it's included. Someone made a claim, the Daily Beast reported that person made the claim, therefore it's included. BlueSalix (talk) 02:07, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't think this belongs. How the article describes inclusion criteria should not be taken hyper-literally. It's understood that reliable sources are the one's doing the calling, otherwise the list will devolve into every media outlet that's pissed-off somebody with a blog or twitter account. Trump's passing insult isn't particularly reliable for a substantial claim, and regardless, he's far from neutral on this issue. Grayfell (talk) 01:48, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
This is hardly hyper-literal. This is the very plain inclusion criteria. A RS (the Daily Beast) has reported that cnn.com was called a fake news site. Our job here is not to validate whether the claim is true - just to index that the act occurred. BlueSalix (talk) 02:05, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
There's no consensus to add CNN to this article. You're stretching things - no reliable source has called CNN fake news. The Daily Beast doesn't say "CNN is fake news" - it just reports what Trump said. There's a difference. You're not going to get any traction with this. Exemplo347 (talk) 02:13, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) We don't stick our heads in the sand over context. WP:CONTEXT always matters. The RS didn't call CNN a fake news site, and the Daily Beast and Mediaite articles don't even clearly say that Trump did, either. He said directly to Acosta "you are fake news!" If we're being literal, we can't pretend like we know exactly what that meant, and using this one incident to cram CNN into the very top of an otherwise alphabetical the list is neither neutral nor well-supported by sources. I guess it's not actually alphabetical, is it? Grayfell (talk) 02:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
The Daily Beast reported that cnn.com was "called a fake news site." According to the artilce, this is just a list of "of websites that have been called fake news sites." A RS has established that someone called cnn.com a fake news site. BlueSalix (talk) 02:26, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
You're focusing on one sentence of the lead - if you read the entire paragraph you'll see that CNN doesn't meet the inclusion criteria. It's quite straightforward. Exemplo347 (talk) 02:44, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hopeless mission

This article seems a hopeless effort. How will it ever be maintained? If we're looking at "fakenews" as merely ad-generated clickbait, I imagine URLs may have very short lifespan. If we're looking at "conspiracy" sites like InfoWar or NaturalNews, with have a long duration, but contain more speculation among true believers, then we're entering into opinions about opinions and it looks like no one will ever agree, and people with divergent ideologies will just war about their rivals. And if we're looking at satire sites, or those which explicitly state their deceptions, or have satire sections which sometimes are confused, then it seems confusing to group these under "fakenews" which don't confess their misdeeds.

Tom Ruen (talk) 13:14, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

We're not entering into opinions about opinions. We're summarizing the reliable sources. When more reliable sources are found, they can be incorporated. No different from any other article or list. And by the way, some non-satire fake news sites do confess their misdeeds. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:51, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
My personal opinion (for the record) is that I don't even think this list should exist due to the general murkiness of the definition. However, it's here, it has survived a Deletion discussion and now our role as Wikipedia editors is to ensure it complies with all relevant policies. Consequently we have to limit ourselves to adding information from reliable sources, like DrFleischman says. We can't perform investigation or analysis, or carry out our own research, and then attempt to add our results to the article. We also cannot edit based on our personal opinion. Yes, the different sources all use different criteria - it's not up to us to edit the article based on that factor. We're encyclopaedia editors - we just have to report what the sources are saying. Exemplo347 (talk) 12:07, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
If we're doing that, we need to put every site that Zimdars mentioned back into the list.[1] Even though she retracted most of them (and eventually all of them). Even though the RS which published her retracted large chunks, in some cases (others were more lazy). That is NOT what we are doing. Instead we are going around in circles about what 'really REALLY really counts' as a reliable source. See the fight about CNN below, where the closing admin categorically states with no hint of irony that the POTUS is not a reliable source. Tom Ruen is correct, this article is hopeless, because the definition of 'fake news' is quickly approaching complete arbitrary-ness. (If that is even a word.) You are also right Exemplo347, that this article needs to be deleted -- we can easily upmerge the WP:NOTEWORTHY contents into fake news website. If somebody will propose another AfD, methinks the recent January stances that some of the RS have taken might give us a different outcome, than what happened the first time.

"definition is vague"[2]; "definition of fake news has blurred. 'Fake news is subjective...depends on who’s defining it.'"[3]; "deliberately fabricated stories, often with the purpose of making money / comedy or satirical news / news source publishing something that is inaccurate / outlets they already don’t trust / 'meaningless catch-all' / liberal bias / almost rendered the term itself meaningless"[4]; "catch-all term to discredit"[5]; "almost lost meaning — partly because it can mean so many different things. Depending on who you talk to"[6] "plastered willy-nilly on anything that's false, and sometimes just on something that someone wants to suggest is false"[7]; "Stop Calling Everything 'Fake News': Journalists are blurring several problems into one — and making it impossible to solve"[8]; "It's time to retire the tainted term 'fake news'"[9]

Although usually DrFleischman's stance would be correct ("this is no different than any other article"), for this article he is wrong. We are having trouble here, summarizing neutrally what RS say, because the SOURCES are having trouble, too. None of them know what 'fake news' really means yet, either, because there is no firm definition as yet. For the moment, best upmerge this stuff into an article with the broader context, instead of just flatly asserting in wikivoice "blahblah.com is fake news" like we are now. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:12, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't understand what you mean about the sources having trouble defining the fake news concept. Is there some conflict among them, and if so can you provide links and quote the conflicting language? Otherwise, what is the basis for them saying that they're having trouble? Please keep your response short and to the point. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:10, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

facebook is not a fake news site, but facebook is responsible for spreading fake news stories

Voluntary WP:COI disclosure, I cannot stand facebook. WP:NOTFACEBOOK is gospel to me. So I'm not suggesting that facebook be added to this list, but I do think that a talkpage discussion of WHY facebook is not on List of fake news websites may help us come to a firmer consensus on whether conspiracy-sites (who believe what they publish and re-publish and thus become a vector for the fake-news-stories originated by clickbait-scammers) belong on the list. Facebook is clearly a major vector for the spread of fake news, the question is, what degree of responsibility for fake news does that give facebook.com? Sources differ:

  • "For weeks, Facebook has been questioned about its role in spreading fake news. ...experiments on curtailing fake news show that Facebook recognizes it has a deepening responsibility for what is on its site"[10] (NYT)
  • "Facebook's fake news problem: What's its responsibility? ...Facebook is under fire for failing to rein in fake and biased news stories... exercises great control over the news its users see, but it declines to assume the editorial responsibility that traditional publishers do. ...Employees [at fbook] have expressed concern over Facebook's role in spreading misinformation and racist memes... Zuckerberg, however, insists that Facebook remains a neutral technology platform where its users can share anything they want... The company's secret algorithms are designed to deliver the posts from friends and other sources that will draw people in and lead them to read and click [...WP:OR says cf clickbait...] and "like" and share... Facebook frequently tweaks its algorithm to improve engagement. Various changes have been aimed at shutting out sites that promote clickbait ...When users are surrounded by posts they want to see, they're more likely to stick around. That's key to Facebook's advertising business. But it can be problematic... Facebook's news feed 'maximizes for engagement. As we've learned in this election, bullshit is highly engaging' former Facebook product designer... 'Not like news companies of the 20th century... But not just pipes where people get their news. They [facebook] determine what is news' ...under the law, Facebook is no more responsible for what appears on its site than 'the paper mills that print newspapers are responsible for their content'...broader issue of Facebook's responsibility is one that's going to be 'debated forever.'"[11] (Chicago Tribune / Associated Press)
  • "Facebook's Fake News Problem... Facebook came under fire for allegedly suppressing conservative stories... Zuckerberg has found himself on the defensive over the role fake news might have played... Facebook may never be able to truly eradicate fake news on its platform, and not for lack of trying. ...Facebook is finally warming up to the idea that it must bear some responsibility for the content its users are sharing, but the question remains: What form does that responsibility take? ...how to address virulent misinformation online is inseparable from philosophical and ideological questions about the purpose of the Internet itself."[12] (Vanity Fair)
  • "[facebook] continues to address the hoaxes that have spread on their platform. ...'we take that responsibility very seriously'... Obama speaking at length on how the way sites like Facebook present articles can... provide a vehicle for people trying to purposefully spread falsehoods."[13] (Politico)
  • "Facebook fake-news writer: ‘I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me’"[14] (WaPo story about Paul Horner who uses facebook as his primary vector for funding his brandjacking clickbait-oriented fake news websites)
  • "Facebook endured reproach for allowing dissemination of fake news on its platform"[15] (The Hill)
  • "Earlier this year, Facebook's "Trending Topics" news feed garnered negative press for supposedly suppressing pro-conservative stories. Now the hue and cry dominating headlines is that the company didn't suppress enough news stories of a conservative bent. It's no longer conservative circles calling for Mark Zuckerberg's head. Now, it's the left that is outraged. Damned if they do. Damned if they don't. ...'[As for] herding people into culturally and ideologically inflexible tribes, nothing that Facebook does to us comes close to what we do to ourselves.'"[16] (journalist blog at The Hill per WP:BLOGS methinks, also quotes NYT for the latter bit)
  • "Facebook is under fire for spreading falsehoods. ...has taken justifiable heat for its role in spreading misinformation and propaganda... its news feed algorithm fueled a cottage industry of fake and intentionally misleading 'news'... This should not surprise anyone who understands how Facebook works. People tend to read, like, and share stories that appeal to their emotions and play to their existing beliefs. Without robust countervailing forces favoring credibility and accuracy, Facebook’s news feed algorithm is bound to spread lies, especially those that serve to bolster people’s preconceived biases. And these falsehoods are bound to influence people’s thinking."[17] (Slate.com senior technology writer)
  • "Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s defense of the platform against charges that it plays a role in disseminating fake news. He says less than 1 percent of what is shared on Facebook is “fake news.” So, how precisely does Facebook, when measuring that statistic, differentiate between [news versus misleading relabelling versus partly true yet distorted versus outright fake 100% made up]...? ...Lots of stuff from Infowars and conservative website Breitbart gets shared across Facebook. Most people on the left would argue that almost all of it is fake or distorted in some fashion. We could be wrong. But how, precisely, would Facebook know? ...isn't just about Facebook. It's 4chan, Twitter, Reddit. Hell, it's the internet. ...Zuckerberg's comments [about fake news], while acknowledging the issue, seem to be an attempt to shift any blame away from Facebook."[18] (opinion piece at Venture Beat)

Again, I'm not saying to add facebook as a list-entry within List of fake news websites, although personally I would be happy to see them there as I hate them... but per policy, I just don't think the sources support a straightforward "facebook is fake news" assertion in wikivoice. But clearly, the sources are pretty united in saying that "facebook spreads fake news" aka that it is a major transmission-vector. There is disagreement about whether this is facebook's FAULT per se, and about HOW facebook should alter their algorithms or processes, but there is little disagreement about the fact that facebook spreads fake news.

More broadly, I see this question as relevant to whether we list conspiracy-sites-that-believe-what-they-spread (but usually do not originate the deceptive material) onto the List of fake news websites, but I also see it as a worthwhile overall question: since we currently only cover the fact that 'facebook spreads fake news' in the concept-article on Fake news website, should we also upmerge the fact that 'infowars is a conspiracy website' into that concept-article? Plenty of people say they are fake news, sure, but the truth is slightly more nuanced -- infowars is arguably not deliberately fake, they really believe that stuff is WP:THETRUTH. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 14:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Your point is not clear. Facebook is a social network, sites prominently associated with fake news (e.g. Breitbart, Infowars) are the clickbait that Facebook promotes, but Facebook itself is one step removed. The problem is that "news" sites like these are aggregated along with real news by Facebook, Google and other websites. Guy (Help!) 18:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
My point is that facebook bears some responsibility for what their newsfeed shows (which often enough is a 'fake news story' that might be political propaganda looking for geopolitical advantage or might be a backlink to a fake-news-site looking for clickbait-cash). Facebook is just the vector, not the originator, but as you can see from e.g. the Oremus quote above in Slate, they are an active vector. By contrast, when the USPS delivers a chain letter the postal carrier literally has no clue what is inside the envelope. Facebook writes algorithms that *know* what is getting pushed to the newsfeed, in some limited computer sense of the term 'to know'. Up above, you are arguing that Infowars is publishing stuff about which "they simply don't care whether it's true or not." I disagree, I think infowars is publishing stuff they believe to be true (UFOs/falseflags/pizzagate/etc). But that same kind of logic applies to facebook: they are most definitely 'publishing' stuff and purposely not caring whether it is true or not. Hence the flak facebook has been getting. Facebook gets less flak than infowars, because nobody seriously thinks facebook is pushing UFOs out of a belief in UFOs... but facebook has made it easy for UFO people to get in touch with other UFO people, and profitable for people that write UFO-hoax-stories to earn clickbait from all those facebook-connected-UFO-people. Facebook is not a fake news site, but facebook algorithms more than just spread fake news, they exponentially exacerbate the scale and speed of the spread. Does that make sense? And if so, how do we deal with the resultant slippery slope, in terms of characterizing this in mainspace? 47.222.203.135 (talk) 04:46, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
This guy,[19] is my point. Fareed Zakaria, CNN journalist, WaPo columnist, trolling went from zero-to-people-calling-his-house-and-scaring-his-little-kids, in two weeks flat. That speed and scale of the viral spread of fake news stories is not possible without facebook/etc technologies oh-so-carefully amplifying "engagement." You had people telling lies in the 1900s via the rotary press like Weekly World News, and in the 1800s via yellow journalism, and in the 1700s via word-of-mouth about the drummer of Tedworth, and via chain letter throughout. Modern technology is a double-edged sword here, because lies spread faster than the truth,[20] if people are not very smart. And on average, people are not very smart. As presently written, this list-of-fake-news-sites article is a binary proposition, and the question it implicitly asks does not seem to permit a binary answer. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 01:21, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm with Guy. I've read through your comments and I don't understand how you're proposing we change this article. We are here to create a list of fake news websites, not to decide whether to assign blame to Facebook. Please keep your response short and to the point. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:06, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

lede says conscious intent, but sources do not

  • This list also excludes sites that promote conspiracy theories based on apparently genuine belief (as opposed to a conscious intent to misinform or to gather web traffic).

This is currently in the lede, but I don't think it reflects the list. If memory serves, 70news.wordpress.com (the place which published the Trump-wins-popvote story that rose to the top of the google-news-heap) apparently really did believe the numbers they published, based on some incorrect arithmetic and some incorrect understanding of the laws about whether paper-based absentee ballots and provisional ballots would ever be added to the preliminary-votes-counts. So they were not consciously spreading fake news, they really thought they had the scoop on the lamestream media saying Hillary Clinton won the popvote.

Similarly, infowars is probably the best-known conspiracy theory website, not counting reddit and 4chan forums, and they are currently listed (with an open RfC about whether or not their intent matters and whether or not they therefore ought be delisted).

Regardless of those two examples, though, I think the as-opposed-to-conscious-intent needs to be removed, because I don't think the sources ever say such things: they either list a particular website as being fake news, or they do not so list it, that I have seen. There is no subcategory in the sources for "publishes fake news but believes what they publish" except possibly the now-retracted list by professor Zimdars. So I would propose removing the sentence. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 04:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

We stick to what the reliable sources say. We have reliable sources saying these sites are fake news sites. If there are reliable sources that are inconsistent with those source, please provide them. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

alexa rank order?

Right now the list is alphabetical, as dictated by wikipedia tradition for list-articles. Can we switch to Alexa.com ordering? Or whatever clickbait-effectiveness-metric people prefer? Some anectodal sample-data from the top few names of the current list in mainspace:

This might also give us a cutoff-threshold for when sourced 'fake news sites' are too insignificant in terms of real-world impact, to make the list, but I'm not arguing for that at present. For sake of comparison, here are some vectors, aggregators, news sites, comedy sites, and satire sites.

For the moment, I'm just proposing that we ought to re-order the list, based on lowest-to-highest-ranking in the Alexa metric (helpful to readers), rather than alphabetically (not as helpful). It is not a perfect metric, but it does give a pretty good indication of how far-reaching a particular website is.

I am mostly indifferent as to whether we visibly *display* the alexa-rank-datapoints, we could probably reduce edit-wars by using hidden html comments for the alexa numbers. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 02:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I've never known Alexa to be used as a reliable source, and I've seen articles that use Alexa to claim notability get deleted. I think that alphabetical order is the most effective way, purely because anyone who doesn't understand what Alexa rankings are will claim some sort of bias - it seems some people need very little excuse to claim bias - and a straightforward alphabetical order is the best way. After all, Wikipedia is not a directory. Exemplo347 (talk) 15:05, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
I concur with the above. Many conservative editors will see infowars at the top of that list and start crying "NPOV" and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. Inforwars is hardly the worst offender, merely the most popular. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Leaving whether including infowars is a WP:BADIDEA aside for the moment (THAT is already being discussed in the RfC above -- and if we *do* keep infowars listed I actually see listing them at the top as an advantage because it will attract more eyeballs to this article... whereas burying them alphabetically probably violates a half-dozen wikipedia policies), and concentrating just on the clearly clickbait sites...
...which is the bulk of the list-entries right now... I definitely think per WP:Readers_first that it helps to see them in alexa-order, because alexa *specifically* ranks based on how much clickbait each site attracts. WSJ is more important[citation needed] in the real world than Buzzfeed, but alexa ranks buzzfeed's ability to attract clicks to their aggregator-content higher than WSJ's ability to attract clicks to their journalism-content, and by a significant margin. Still, WSJ is better at attracting clicks than The Daily Show, which in turn is better than Weekly World News, which is better than most fake-news-sites, and so on.
This same exact sort of pecking order applies to comparisons of fake-news-sites to each other, because they are after all designed as clickbait-scams: the more famous exemplars of the fake-news-site genre naturally have higher alexa-rankings than the nobodies of the fake-news-site world, which means 70news / react365 / abcnews.com.co / denverguardian / nationalreport rank near the top (relative to other narrow-definition fake-news-sites) and never-heard-of-them websites that once got passing mention in some source are at the bottom (bloomberg.ma / msnbc.website). I don't care if we use Alexa.com specifically, we can use "facebook likes & shares" which is the system preferred by U.S. News & World Report for instance. But alphabetical is not ideal because it buries the wheat with the chaff. Although obviously the entire list is basically chaff, some chaff is more equal than others, to pervert Orwell. Using some kind of ranking-metric will also help us determine how important sites are over time aka historically; bloomberg.ma *was* important at one point, in a pump and dump scheme, but nobody is fooled by that particular fake-news-site-URL *nowadays* in 2017. I don't know if alexa.com offers history of their metric more than the past few months, but I will check. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 16:09, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Off-site canvassing at Reddit

Reddit users of the "the_donald" subreddit are discussing how to insert CNN into this list and remove infowars. This is off-wiki canvassing and against the rules. [Proof https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5oij9o/wikipedia_officially_adds_cnncom_to_list_of_fake/]

Evaristeg (talk) 23:25, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Ah well, if they can produce the Reliable Sources that nobody else has been able to find, then I look forward to reading it. However, I expect it'll just be an influx of IP editors with a load of weak "Trump called it fake, so insert it into the list" arguments. Exemplo347 (talk) 00:59, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Request: Let me add Buzzfeed to the list

I think after the recent events Buzzfeed should definite;y be in the list. It has been denounced by every major news site including liberal media like CNN as a fake news site. It has to be in the list. Liberal guardian said that Buzzfeed's fake news method raised strong ethic questions. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/10/buzzfeed-publishes-donald-trump-russia-documents-ethics-questions

If you need any further proof that the site is an obvious fake news site, be free to contact me.

FFPAULPAO (talk) 03:08, 18 January 2017 (GMT+2)

Disagree. An unethical news website is not the same thing as a fake news website. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:29, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
@FFPAULPAO: Where did CNN call Buzzfeed a fake news website? FallingGravity 02:35, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
@FallingGravity:https://twitter.com/cnnpr/status/819237300668399616FFPAULPAO (talk) 04:50, 18 January 2017 (GMT+2)
Nowhere in that statement does it call Buzzfeed is a fake news website. Keep trying. FallingGravity 02:57, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree:: Buzzfeed should absolutely be added as "Fake News". They admitted the Dossier they posted on President-Elect Trump had many unverified parts yet they posted it anyway. This is the very definition of "Fake News" listed on this page, but the fact that a website such as infowars is included on this list instead makes me think more that this page is just a political standpoint. http://www.dailywire.com/news/12354/ugly-cnn-turns-buzzfeed-over-fake-news-trump-james-barrett Joshrulez2 (talk) 01:36, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

This might sound like I'm being picky, but Buzzfeed admitted the dossier they published was unverified and may contain errors. What they didn't do is publish it, claiming it was all true, while knowing that it wasn't. Like I said, that might sound picky but it's an important distinction that means the current inclusion criteria for this list do not apply to Buzzfeed. Exemplo347 (talk) 02:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

It still fits perfectly in the description provided in this article. "These sites intentionally publish hoaxes and disinformation for purposes other than news satire." Buzzfeeed intentionally published disinformation to defame the president-elect. Many people failed victims of that and that is not the first time it has happened. If a journalist addds somewhere in the article that this might not be true, that doens't make the article respectable. It is still fake news. For example, since infowars is in the list, let's say that if you take the infowars pizzagate story and let the author write "This is not 100% confirmed" would that make you recalculate its addition to the fake news list? Probably not. This isn't the first time Buzzfeed has posted ridiculous stuff. Just by checking their main page they post articles altering completely the reality to pass their own linear opinions: https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosebuchanan/donald-trump-confused-a-brighton-council-worker-with-his-dau https://www.buzzfeed.com/miriamelder/trumps-translator-wants-the-global-elite-to-understand-him FFPAULPAO (talk) 04:34, 18 January 2017 (GMT+2)

What is your source for calling Buzzfeed a fake news website? We don't make these definitions up — we get the information from reliable sources. What is your source for this? Bradv 02:42, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
@Bradv:
FFPAULPAO(talk) 04:50, 18 January 2017 (GMT+2)
Thanks for sharing that. I've looked through all of them, and none of the sources
  1. directly call Buzzfeed a "fake news" site, or
  2. accuse Buzzfeed of "making up" the Russian dossier, or any other news.
All of the items on the list in this article have been directly called fake news by a reputable reliable source, and they have all been caught fabricating stories. The worst Buzzfeed has been accused of is publishing a story that no other news company was willing to publish. That's not the same thing at all. Bradv 03:14, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
That's not at all what happened. These all reliable sources of vastly used media. Saying that the worst Buzzfeed has been accused of is publishing a story that nobody else was willing to publish is certainly ridiculous and does not apply to reality. It is probably an extremely biased opinion that is defunkted by every single source I posted, even by the liberal media. Pretending to actually trying to discuss while not wanting to is against the foundation of democracy. Buzzfeed is an obvious fake news site and should definitely be listed as one.
FFPAULPAO(talk) 03:20, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Again, what's obvious to you may not be what's obvious to me. That's why we need reliable sources for the things we write. Please see the verifiability policy, and perhaps The Five Pillars of Wikipedia. Bradv 03:23, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Care to explain why Infowars is in that list? It doesn't correspond to the validity of the sources you preach about. Are you using double standards to pass your ideology? What makes USNews, CBSNews, the dailybeast, washinton times, vanity fair, chicago tribune, new yorker more valuable than Fox News, Breitbart, New York Post, Zerohedge, the guardian, NYT. NYT, Fox News and Breitbart are the second, third and fourth most accessed news sites in US. Meanwhile, for Infowars two sources npr, and csmonitor are used that do not mention infowars as fake news. Infowars and Buzzfeed are two sides of the same coin. You either put them both in or both out.FFPAULPAO(talk) 03:35, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Infowars regularly publishes stuff they make up themselves. When Buzzfeed publishes something that is unverified, like the dossier, they put right in the headline "The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors." That is the major difference between the two websites. Regarding the rest of your comment: I'm not sure what you're talking about—none of those sources are listed here. They are all considered reliable sources for Wikipedia's purposes. Bradv 03:38, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
1)Citatation needed. Stop making stuff up. 2) I read that thing. You are obviously lying and making stuff up at this point. I don't get why you have to lie to pass your agenda. Just admit that you have double standards so that we can move on. My sources are much more viable by the way than yours. FFPAULPAO(talk) 03:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
There are nine sources in the article that establish that Infowars is a fake news website. We've been working on this for over an hour and we can't find a single source that establishes that Buzzfeed is a fake news website. There's no double standard—we're treating both of these exactly the same. Bradv 03:54, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
It's vastly obvious that you want to use Wikipedia as a propaganda site. You might as well add Wikipedia to the fake news list because that's what you are trying to achieve here. Biased people like you who want to pass their agenda have made "lol wikipedia" a meme. When you see the big picture and you note that most of the sites you posted are not reliable then you might as well become an unbiased contributor. I posted many sources calling Buzzfeed fake news. Even the president himself elected by this country with over 60M votes said so. FFPAULPAO out.FFPAULPAO(talk) 04:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
In all the sources you provided, the only person who claimed Buzzfeed was fake news was Donald Trump, who is not himself a reliable source. I don't understand how Wikipedia can be accused of being a propaganda site—it will publish anything as long as its covered in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. We do not make stuff up, we do not engage in original research, and we have a duty to be neutral in everything we write. Again, please read The Five Pillars of Wikipedia—it will tell you everything you need to know. Bradv 04:07, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
@Bradv: I will just weigh in here that your bias on this subject is very telling (And very obvious having looked at what types of other articles you contribute to). Any person with a reasonable amount of intelligence arriving onto this list of fake news websites will see the whole thing is a fraud when you apply double standards by including a conspiracy outlet who sides with the right of the political spectrum (InfoWars) and then fail to include a very left-wing click-bait source Buzzfeed, who much of the mainstream media have slated over their recent actions. They intentionally printed a hoax document, what more do you require. But honestly the most fair thing to do with this article would be to delete it, as the terminology "fake news" is a buzzword created by the liberal media to try and discredit many right-wing sources therefore this article will always be open to much bias on either end of the political spectrum 89.197.27.30 (talk) 09:40, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment Making allegations of bias, directly or indirectly, isn't going to help anything. Base your arguments on Wikipedia's Policies and Guidelines, not on your personal opinion of the subject matter or on your opinions of other editors. Try to remain civil and we can come to a consensus in a reasonable way. Exemplo347 (talk) 10:34, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
"This list also excludes sites that promote conspiracy theories based on apparently genuine belief (as opposed to a conscious intent to misinform or to gather web traffic" ::This comment is stated at the beginning of the article, so please explain to me how infowars is included on this list.

89.197.27.30 (talk) 11:25, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Because infowars is called a fake news site by reliable sources. As has been explained at least twice before in this thread. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Buzzfeed? No. The Fake news sites who turn around and say "no YOU'RE fake!" doesn't get to get counted as reliable sources. ValarianB (talk) 19:43, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Satire

There appears to be a broad consensus here and at Talk:Fake news website that satire sites are not fake news sites and should not be included. If anyone wishes to discuss that consensus, this would be a good place to do so. But so far, I'm not aware of many editors wanting sites like theonion.com to be included in the list. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The second sentence of the article reads "These sites intentionally publish hoaxes and disinformation for purposes other than news satire." Unless there's a consensus to remove that sentence and include satirical sites, they should not be listed. Maproom (talk) 21:54, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
I saw that you removed the website World News Daily Report from this list. I personally believe that satire websites that have a long history of fooling people with its articles should be included on this list. As shown here [21] there are more than 40 articles from WNDR that have its own article on Snopes. Evking22 (talk) 01:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Let's keep this particular discussion about satire. If you want to discus WND (which of course is not satire) then please start a new discussion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:36, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't really want to get involved with copyediting this article, as I don't feel I can do it justice, but I thought it might be worth stating explicitly that the confusion sometimes occurs. There might even be, in time, room for a "notable examples of satirical sites mistaken for fake news" section or subsection. I guess one distinction between the two is that a satirical news story is alarming when you read it wrong, but funny when you read it right; a fake news story is intended to be alarming, and can never be mistaken for humour? I suppose the Fake news website page is the "main article" for this subject, so apologise if this is already explored there. Stroller (talk) 04:57, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
It is not just that "the confusion sometimes occurs" really, Stroller... it is the case that the vast bulk of the WP:SOURCES for this article, DO list various kinds of satirical and comedy-oriented websites by name as explicitly and unambiguously being 'fake news sites'. In addition to 'clickbait scam site' the phrase 'fake news (entity)' can also mean, and has traditionally meant for a decade, The Onion and Colbert Report and such, which originate hilariously fabricated 'news' that fools nobody with WP:CLUE, but by "consensus" those are WP:POVFORK'd over to List of satirical news websites despite strong grammatical and conceptual overlap.
Suggest that this List of fake news websites article needs a new section at the bottom, which carefully and precisely explains in some depth (a couple of paragraphs not a half-sentence) that in fact #1) various satire-and-comedy websites like The Onion have been called 'fake news' at one time or another, especially prevalent usage prior to mid-2016, and #2) many of the actual fake news clickbait-scam sites will claim somewhere in the fine print buried deep in the bowels of their site to be "for entertainment only" or even explicitly "this site is satire"... but that is often just a legal dodge to try and bypass the new censorship-of-fake-news algorithms at facebook (the primary vector of fake-news-stories-backlinking-to-clickbait-scam-sites). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:54, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
To date I'm not aware of a single editor suggesting here that satirical websites like The Onion should be included on the list of fake news sites. So why do we need to go to such great lengths? As Wikipedia editors we get to decide the scope of our articles and lists. There is consensus that satirical sites should be excluded and the sources make it easy to week them out. The fact that a few sources describe these sites as "satire fake news" does not mean that they should be included in any capacity. We are saying explicitly that our list does not include satire fake news. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:49, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
  • The main problem with this is that it requires artistic judgement. Poe's Law is also relevant. It's my view as a consumer of satire (Private Eye especially) that the political extremes basically doesn't do satire, and a number of the clumsier extremist "satire" sites are clearly fake news by any rational definition. Guy (Help!) 14:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
  • This is a correct assessment. But given that state of affairs, how do we construct our article-series on fake-news, fake-news-sites, satire-sites, and comedy-sites, so as to stop the edit wars and talkpage clogging? That is the question methinks. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 15:13, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Artistic judgment? It's called our verifiability policy. If reliable sources say a site is satire, then we treat it as satire. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

News Biscuit

Can we see if we can get some consensus on whether News Biscuit should be on the list? We have a Daily Dot source saying it's a fake news site, but Strolls says it's obvious satire. Discuss. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:30, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

To anyone of normal intelligence who looks at News Biscuit, it's obvious satire. It's listed at List of satirical news websites. Maproom (talk) 17:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Looking at this in a bit more depth, I think the source is sloppy reporting and clearly not reliable for what is/is not fake news. It conflates fake news, misleading news, and satire, and it explicitly draws from Melissa Zimdars' list, which Zimdars herself said is a much broader list of unreliable sources that includes much more than fake news. What's might be even worse is that Zimdars labels both The Onion and News Biscuit as satire, but the Daily Dot source excludes The Onion but not News Biscuit without explanation. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
I've never thought of Daily Dot as a particularly reliable source. It feels like newspapers of record avoid naming specific fake news sites, except when they're doing an in-depth article on one or its creator(s), and that someone grabbed that Daily Dot article because it was the only available source for some obvious fake news sites. I was going to suggest FakeNewsWatch.com, which comes up top google search for "fake news sites", but it turns out unreliable too - it is listing not only News Biscuit, but also Private Eye. When I tried to contact them about this error I found that they have refused for the last year to remove the latter - Private Eye which is very famous in the UK, and has broken a number of important actual news stories. Stroller (talk) 06:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
We are currently using fakeNewsWatch.com dataset as 'reliable' here in this article in mainspace. That is the entire content of the USN&WR ref, but stamped with the 'Reliable' approval. Agree with DrFleischman that any source consisting of (or based solely upon) Zimdar's now-retracted googledoc is a crap source, and also agree that fakeNewsWatch (or any republication thereof such as USN&WR) is also a crap source. But that is mostly what this list-icle actually *uses* for sourcing (the list started out based on WaPo's recycling of PropOrNot... which, as usual, was retracted/errata'ized later). Because as you note, the higher-quality publishers DO NOT make lists-of-fake-news-sites like these anymore... or when they do (e.g. LATimes and their Zimdar-republication or WaPo and their PropOrNot-recycling), later they issue an editorial mea culpa. Seriously suggest sending our list here to AfD again, and see if we can upmerge the *good* sources which are *not* based on recycling retracted/shoddy/etc bloggers, into the parent fake news website / fake news websites in the United States prose-articles where we can cover the WP:BROADCONCEPT with nuance. Current article-body is binary yes-it-is-fake-for-sure, and by implication exclusion implies not-listed-means-not-fake, which is not even wrong. Either AfD, or WP:TNT, seems to be badly needed here. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 15:10, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Let's keep this discussion restricted to comments about NewsBiscuit.com. If you wish to discuss the fakeNewsWatch.com dataset then please start a new discussion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:39, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm on board with the removal. Obvious satire is obvious satire, and a world of difference from fake news. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:20, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Academic sources suggest it is both a satirical website, and also a publisher of fake news, and therefore is dubbed a "satirical fake news website" in the most recent publication with double-digit-cites. Older cites, published in earlier years chronologically but discussing the same timeframe-in-the-history-of-newsbiscuit-dot-com, did not use the phrase 'fake news' but preferred to say 'satire news' in one case or 'parodies' in the other.

So the answer is, this is a borderline case which does not fit precisely into the artificial boxes wikipedians have created. NewsBiscuit was a satire-site published parodies&satire until ~2013, after which it also started to be called a satire-site publishing fake news, according to scholar.google.com -- checking that conclusion on news.google.com turns up 2.5 weakly-sourced hits, all in 2016, for 'fake news [web]site' (Daily Dot and two Buzzfeed), as well as 2.5 weakly-sourced hits in 2012/2015/2016 for 'satirical news [web]site' (Pink News/Broadway World(~300 cite-uses)/London Evening Standard) although the 2016 one is actually a direct self-identifying quote from the site-owners (2016 journalist calls it a 'spoof news site' which wiktionary tells me is a synonym for 'hoax/parody/nonsense/satire/sendup'). For what it is worth, news.google.com aggregates NewsBiscuit, and lists them as 'satire [news]' specifically... unclear whether or not NewsBiscuit will also be dubbed 'fake [news]' as google deploys their new anti-fake-news-technology, but for the moment wikipedia is getting mixed signals from the sources on NewsBiscuit. Or maybe the sources are trying to tell us that our artificially segregated content-boxes need rethinking, hint hint. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 15:10, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

This is not a borderline case. All three of the sources you cite say that NewsBiscuit is satire. The fact that some of them call it "satirical fake news" is irrelevant. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:42, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Show me some fake news on News Biscuit, 47.222.203.135. It's run by a best-selling comedy author who previously worked on Spitting Image and Have I Got News For You - one or two lists have have included News Biscuit because someone, in their haste to compile a list of bad sites, apparently missed a joke. Just look at News Biscuit for yourself! "Cat ‘Exhibiting First Signs Of Fascism’", "Prince William Returns To Slaying Dragons" It feels like concern trolling to argue News Biscuit is a fake news site - including them discredits the list. Can this page stick to actual fake news, please? I'm going to have to stop participating in this discussion - it's winding me up. Stroller (talk) 04:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment Having read through the discussion above, I've come to the conclusion that the site is obvious satire - and it calls itself satire. I can't see a rational reason for people to argue for its inclusion here. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:53, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

World News Daily Report

The website World News Daily Report was removed from the list. I was a bit surprised that it was, considering the fact that it has been there since the article was started, added by the user Victorgrigas. I believe that it has multiple sources identifying it as fake news while other sources consider it to be satire. For example, Snopes describes it as being fake news on their list.[25].

This does have potential to be added back in, but I do have to get some input on this issue. Is World News Daily Report worthy enough for this list? Evking22 (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I am the editor who removed World News Daily Report from the list – not because it's "unworthy", but because it's a satirical site rather than a "fake news" site, and the list starts "This is a list of fake news sites. These sites intentionally publish hoaxes and disinformation for purposes other than news satire." If you doubt it's satirical, just look at it: [26]. Maproom (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2017 (UTC) ... or read its disclaimer.

Semi-protected edit request on 25 January 2017

Please add Breitbart.com to the list of fake news sites with these bullets:

• Breitbart recently published an article that is claimed to be false by German officials. They claimed that a “1,000-man mob” chanting “Allahu Akbar” set fire to a church on New Year’s Eve, but police said that no incident occurred. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). Jshepa13 (talk) 06:45, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Brietbart is unreliable and a hark back to 19th century yellow journalism but to go the whole way and label it "fake" would be going to far I think. ValarianB (talk) 13:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree with Valarian: Breitbart isn't a fake news website, but a prime example of yellow journalism. Besides, we have no reliable sources calling them a fake news website that I'm aware of. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:32, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Agreed - Breitbart published a news story that was called "fake" - I can't think of many Reliable Sources that haven't, at one time or another, made a similar error. It's definitely not in the same ball-park as claiming Sandy Hook was staged or saying that politicians eat babies, like some of the current entries on this list have done. Exemplo347 (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Fake news doesn't have to be as outlandish as that. Fake news isn't about the extremeness of the claims, it's about publishing entire deliberately false stories masquerading as legitimate news, regardless of what those stories say. The distinction between that concept and the good-faith promotion of conspiracy theories can be tricky, but it's one that some reliable sources can and have made in recent months. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:02, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
I know that, I'm just saying that one case where a fake story was run by Breitbart does not make them a "Fake news website" - they don't meet the criteria. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:01, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Request for Comment - Inclusion of Infowars in this list

At the time the RfC was opened, and for a period preceding and following it, InfoWars was included on this list. As I interpreted the RfC, and the subsequent responses, it was therefore asking whether InfoWars should be removed, not whether InfoWars should be added.

By breadth of support, 10 editors called to keep it, 11 called to remove it, and 1 expressed a different opinion (delete the entire article), which I construed as also supporting removal since deletion of the article would necessarily result in the removal of InfoWars from the list by fact that the list would cease to exist. This means 12 editors want to remove it and 10 want to keep it, which is only a slim majority in favor of removal. Further, at least two editors calling for removal appeared to be single-purpose accounts. While their opinions were not discounted, they were weighted with that in mind.

The essence of the perspective of editors who wanted to keep it was that InfoWars is not a "fake news" site, as such sites have recently come to be defined, but a conspiracy theory website, which is functionally different; namely, "fake news" sites publish materially false facts, while conspiracy theory websites publish fringe perspectives on otherwise generally accepted facts. User:JzG and others, however, noted that - regardless of the validity of this point - WP:RS refer to InfoWars as a "fake news" site and the judgment of WP editors can't be substituted for the judgment of RS, even though this judgment may or may not be entirely correct. This policy-based argument was reiterated several times but never substantially rebutted.

By (lack) of breadth of support for removal, and value of argumentation for retention, there is no consensus to remove InfoWars from the list in this article. DarjeelingTea (talk) 11:58, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the list of fake news websites within this article contain Infowars? Exemplo347 (talk) 17:51, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

  • Note - Can we please keep the responses brief? Walls of text won't help to reach a consensus. Exemplo347 (talk) 17:58, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Responses

  • Support (as Proposer) - The entry for Infowars on this list is well supported by citations and references (none of which were provided by me!). Exemplo347 (talk) 17:51, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Note - I'm sure I don't need to remind experienced editors that these discussions are not a vote. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The entry for Infowars on this list on no more well supported than Breitbart. With the bar set so low we might as well put on the list; the outlets that are the purveyors of fake news from sources such as Brian Williams and Megan Kelly of Fox News for that matter as she completely distorted the "pizzagate" story involving Infowars host Alex Jones.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.219.167.240 (talk) 18:44, 17 December 2016‎ (UTC)
The closing administrator should disregard this vote; the IP user has only two edits, both to this talk page, and makes no policy-relevant point. Neutralitytalk 16:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
The policy-relevant point is that, despite crappy sourcing saying otherwise, there is a standing consensus that breitbart.com does NOT belong on the List of fake news websites. The sourcing on whether infowars.com belongs is more numerous, but includes those same crappy sources as a subset. Closing admin may wish to skim Talk:List_of_fake_news_websites/Archive_1#Breitbart.com, before discounting the point about WP:NOTEWORTHY being made by 47.219.167.240 methinks. And despite the numerical similarity, they are not me, and I am not them, nor do I have any idea who they are or contact of any sort, outside of this comment I'm about to save. We do mention breitbart indirectly, in a ref-title. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 14:50, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No It should not include InfoWars. The article is supposed to list websites which intentionally publish hoaxes. InfoWars is a conspiracy site. It's utter rubbish, but it doesn't intentionally publish hoax stories. The authors of that site genuinely believe the nonsense that they write. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:18, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
Which WP:RS make this point? We have multiple reliabel sources identifying it as fake news, if you want to include a rebuttal you can, provided you can source it. Guy (Help!) 12:07, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Multiple sources do not indicate a consensus on what constitutes "fake news." All we have to go on is what various reporters classify as "fake news" and that definition is constantly changing. Until we can get a consensus from a group of sociologist or whatever type of scientist study public opinion, we cannot be certain on what defines "Fake News"GuyWhoLikesToHaveFun (talk) 00:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No They do not intentionally publish hoaxes. Conspiracy theories are not the same as hoaxes. Until we can get a consensus from a group of sociologist or whatever type of scientist study public opinion, we cannot be certain on what defines "Fake News"GuyWhoLikesToHaveFun (talk) 00:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
This is not how Wikipedia works. See our verifiability policy. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Keep Infowars on the list. Enough reliable sources labeling it fake news. Victor Grigas (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No - There are citations, but they don't all call it a fake news site. It's discussed in connection with stories linked to fake news, and in proximity to discussion of fake news, but as far as I can see only the two that pulled names from Zimdars's list make the explicit connection. A third talks about others calling InfoWars fake news, but cites no source (likely Zimdars et al. -- and the Washington Times is not itself a great source of generalized commentary about the misdeeds of "the mainstream media" anyway). With all the coverage this is getting, and the amount of coverage InfoWars gets, we need more than that initial list. Same as Breitbart. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:10, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
The sources use Infowars as an example while discussing fake news sites. There are lso statements such as "I you’ve opened up a newspaper, turned on the TV, or logged onto the Internet over the past few months, you’ve likely encountered a discussion about the scourge of “fake news.” Web sites like InfoWars, which published countless false stories suggesting Hillary Clinton was running a child-sex-slave ring out of a D.C.-area pizzeria" or "Liberty Writers News, Alex Jones’s Info Wars, and Ending the Fed are among a group of websites that rose in popularity among Donald Trump’s supporters during the 2016 presidential election. But these same sites have been called out as fake news, spreading lies and conspiracy theories – such as Pope Francis’ endorsement of Trump, Hillary Clinton’s supply of weapons to the Islamic State, and various murder-suicides of Mrs. Clinton’s staffers – without any of journalism's traditional fact-checking." Salon says: "the Trump propaganda machine is not top-down. While sites like Infowars and Breitbart News — major hubs for the right-wing hoax stories created by these fake journalists — are heavily linked to the incoming Trump administration, they are technically independent organizations." It's hard not to conclude that these sources are characterising Infowars explicitly as a fake news site. Guy (Help!) 15:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No, given the lack of reliable sources showing intentional fabrication of stories by Infowars. RJaguar3 | u | t 17:10, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No - InfoWars does not fall under the definition of "fake" news. There's no evidence that they mislead users into believing something that they themselves don't believe. Jdm64 (talk) 04:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No There isn't intentional misleading of people into believing that something false is real news. They're just conspiracy theories, not fake news. Adotchar| reply here 02:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I understand your opinion of what fake news means. The reliable independent sources use a more elastic definition, one which encompasses publication of blatantly false stories spread without regard to their objective truth. And that is unarguably what Infowars does. Guy (Help!) 17:47, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
No, U.S. News says that Infowars spreads misinformation deliberately. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
Aye, they do that too. But much of the bullshit they publish, they simply don't care whether it's true or not. Like Breitbart only worse. Guy (Help!) 14:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Keep Infowars on the list Alex Jones is promoting many false pro-Nazi conspiracy theories on Infowars. Infowars is fake news. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 01:10, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes. The content is supported by several highly reliable sources that say that Infowars is a fake news website, and I haven't seen any reliable sources that say otherwise. Therefore, the content is verifiable. Several of the editors !voting "no" here seem to be unfamiliar with this policy. (Several other cited sources do not explicitly support the content and should be pruned.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:06, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Per the definition provided by The New York Times and PolitiFact, InfoWars is not fake news. Are those reliable sources? Per their definition, a fake news site is one that knowingly spreads fabricated content. I've seen no source that verifiably proves that InfoWars knows that they are spreading fabricated content. If we allow InfoWars to stay then we are contradicting our/their definition. Jdm64 (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
You're mistaken. The US News source says InfoWars is a propaganda site that deliberately spreads misinformation. That meets the NY Times/PolitiFact definition. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:32, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that US News only lists InfoWars because it's on the list created by fakenewswatch.com, which is just a random site someone made. Did you even read the article? They talk about fake news in general then give a partial list from fakenewswatch.com. You made the correlation that US News stated that InfoWars deliberately spreads misinformation. -- Jdm64 (talk)
Yes, I read the article. It's not clear that U.S. News only lists InfoWars because it's on the list created by fakenewswatch.com, and to the extent that that's why US News included them, it's safe to assume that U.S. News vetted fakenewswatch.com and deemed it reliable. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:55, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
DrFleischman, if you will examine the archive.org history of fakenewswatch.com , and compare it (after eliding sites with low number of facebook likes), you will see that the USNews piece was exactly that: a subset of the fakenewswatch list, stripped of low-like-count sites, nothing more. Oh, and with a clickbait title slapped onto the shortlist: "avoid at all costs!!!!!111!!" The publication meets WP:RS for most cases, but this particular piece is a bad hill to die on. I also note that the author of the piece has been a journalist for roughly a year, and previously was a social media executive, and previously-previously a student. This is weak sourcing, just like the Zimdars-inspired sourcing is weak, and wikipedia should not be relying so heavily on such weak support in mainspace. We don't treat interview-quotes from guitarists ("I am the greatest bassist evah" the guitarist said) as 'evidence' of the notability of said guitarist, and we should not be treating recycled-listicles ("xyz.com is fake news" according to fakenewswatchdotcom) as 'evidence' here on this article, methinks. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:35, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes, keep. The content is supported by several highly reliable sources that directly characterize it as fake news. Nuances or alternate/other characterizations (e.g., "conspiracy theory") can go in the "notes" section. Also, the closing administrator should disregard most or all of the "no" comments, since they do not address the multiple reliable sources that back up the inclusion and are not policy-based. Neutralitytalk 16:39, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes. We have reliable independent sources that identify Infowars as a fake news website. We cannot, per WP:NOR, substitute our own judgment that it does not meet some arbitrary definition of fake news and should therefore be excluded. Guy (Help!) 12:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes, keep. Obviously. Identified as fake news by numerous RS. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:49, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Keep Whether the authors believe their conspiracy theories or not doesn't change the fact that the 'news' they publish is usually fake. Also, the title of this RfC is confusing: It asks if we should remove Infowars from the list, but then the question is whether to keep infowars on the list. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:56, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
My fault - sorted. Exemplo347 (talk) 02:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No. I prefer the stronger definition of "fake news", similar to how our internal guidelines define use of WP:FAKE references as a much more serious allegation than merely unreliable or biased ones. The sources calling Infowars fake do not appear to make such a distinction. 97.81.188.95 (talk) 17:26, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Your preference is unworkable then there would be no sources, and therefore no list. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:22, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Exclude. I haven't seen a reliable source saying that Infowars publishes "deliberately fabricated stories." Like others have said, the owners of this website genuinely believe the nonsense they publish. Perhaps this belongs on another article would list conspiracy media outlets. FallingGravity 03:57, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
You're mistaken. The U.S. News source says Infowars deliberately spreads misinformation. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:22, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
There are reliable independent sources that explicitly call Infowars a fake news site. Denying this, is pointless. I have yet to see any sources that analyse whether it is a fake news site and come tot he conclusion that it is not; if such exist then that would be a reason to discuss the disputed definition (which we can do in a list without any problem). Supplanting what RSs say with our own perosnal view on what does or does not meet the criteria we personally think should be used, is WP:OR and forbidden by policy. A policy-valid argument to exclude based on WP:UNDUE would be defensible, but one based on your personal view of what is and is not a fake news site, is not. Guy (Help!) 14:49, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
There is at least one, thus far.[27] Has about the same standing as Zimdars, who we heavily depend upon as 'reliable' in the wikipedia sense for our list-icle here. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:27, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Keep based on reliable sources that have been provided in the article, including US News and CBS News. They all label Infowars as "fake news." I get that some other editors consider it a "conspiracy theory" website instead, but if mainstream reliable sources don't say that, it's original research. I wasn't able to turn up any sites that says Infowars is not "fake news." Without reliable sources that do not consider the website fake news (not just editors' personal determinations), then it should be included. FuriouslySerene (talk) 21:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
Changing vote to Remove per this recent Buzzfeed article that specifically excludes Infowars as a "fake news" website. This has a good discussion about the website, in which it notes that Info Wars, while having reported false stories in the past, is not like the other "fake news" websites of this list, and instead exists as a sort of alternative news source. FuriouslySerene (talk) 03:19, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
The Buzzfeed source doesn't say that Infowars isn't a fake news site. And even if it did, our neutrality policy would require us to somehow flag that reliable sources conflicted on Infowars. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:38, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, it does. Perhaps try re-reading it, if you haven't already. This is the only reliable source I'm aware of that actually discusses how to categorize InfoWars. It calls it a "New Media Upside Down," and not a fake news source. FuriouslySerene (talk) 02:19, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't follow. Yes the source calls InfoWars New Media Upside Down. But it doesn't say it's not fake news, and it doesn't say all New Media Upside Down isn't fake news. Have I missed something? If so, please point me to the specific language you're referring to. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 03:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia definitely says in wikivoice that infowars.com is a conspiracy theorist's website. And per WP:PROMO we do not have a dedicated article on the site, just a redirect to the BLP. WGBH, the local PBS/NPR affiliate in Boston, has an assoc journalism prof at Northeastern University writing a news-piece that InfoWars is 'false news' but not 'fake news'.[28] See also my comments below, about the need to upmerge this entire list-article into the parent, where more context can be provided. I also think that *listing* websites like ABCnews.com.co is borderline-WP:PROMO for clickbait scammers, and that *those* ought to also be upmerged into the parent fake news website article on the conceptual topic, but that is another discussion. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:27, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Exclude. Infowars should not classify as a "Fake News" outlet as it does not intentionally publish hoax stories, it's main use over the years has been to distribute conspiracy theories which is a totally different topic. Its appearance seems to be more of a political agenda therefore should be removed. Joshrulez2 (talk) 21:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
The cited reliable sources include political propaganda as motive for publishing fake news. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:20, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Sorry Joshrulez2, how do you know that Infowars does not intentionally publish hoax stories? Is there a reliable source saying this, or is this your own Original Research? Exemplo347 (talk) 01:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Keep per reliable sources. Evking22 (talk) 01:52, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
  • WP:TNT this little list and all its friends then start over, NOT from the basis of borderline-RS-but-weak-and-crappy sources (i.e. scholar.google.com first rather than buzzfeed and dailydot and recycled propornot/zimdars/fakenewswatch list-icles by lazy churnalists). Most importantly methinks, instead of three A/B/C list-articles-fiefdoms, each with a yes-or-no wikitable-structure being imposed (which encourages an improperly-binary is-fake-or-ain't-fake editing approach), switch to a prose-and-paragragh structure where we cover individual sites by type (comedy/satire/conspiracy/clickbait/brandjack/etc) in the depth and nuance needed to do so with WP:Accuracy and precision. Ten sources call infowars fake and one calls them 'rancid-and-false-news but simultaneously not-fake-per-first-amendment'[29] The current alphabetically-weaponized WP:POVFORK'd listicle structure cannot do justice to that realworld state of affairs: including infowars -- which I will note has been a redirect to a WP:BLP since 2007 thanks to WP:PROMO editing -- while excluding MANY others 'by consensus' is wrong and WP:BADIDEA as I explain in the archives, but excluding infowars would be at least as wrong! So to avoid the trap, of facing two wrong binary outcomes either of which will fail to improve the encyclopedia, best to alter the experiment, and stop taking our *own* article-titles literally: we are here to write an encyclopedia which neutrally summarizes the sources on important concepts such as 'fake news' but we are NOT here to write 'list of fake news websites' specifically, unless that in fact IS an encyclopedic topic... AND we can do so neutrally and properly without picking winners and losers amongst the WP:SOURCES. We need to stick to neutrally summarizing what the RS actually say and doing that is impossible with the current table-and-three-way-split structure. So scrap the artificial structure, and deal with the root cause of the problem by writing nuanced source-backed neutral prose that describes, not decides. p.s. If this RfC closes as keep *or* as exclude (rather than TNT or AfD or equivalent), I strongly suggest we apply WP:LSC to avoid promoting clickbait-scam fake news websites on-wiki. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
You already !voted Oppose above. The funny thing is, your wall of text there doesn't give a reason to exclude Infowars from this list. Point it out to me if it does, but please keep your response short. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:14, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Threaded Discussion

  • Comment We might need a concrete definition of "fake news" because right now it's mostly a buzzword. I think we could go with The Washington Post's definition "deliberately fabricated stories". FallingGravity 20:16, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
The definition of 'fake news' is not as important as the definition of 'fake news website'. NYT says "Narrowly defined, 'fake news' means a made-up story with an intention to deceive, often geared toward getting clicks."[30] It is possible to have 'false news' on a legit website, and it is possible for mostly-legit websites like twitter to be a propagation-vector for both 'false news' as well as 'fake news' ... but the only way to be considered a 'fake news website' is to deliberately manufacture fake stories, then falsely pretend they are true, with intent to defraud via that specific type of clickbait scam. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 23:53, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Definition of Fake News - I think the safest course is to go with what reliable sources call "fake news" - anything else strays right into the middle of "Original Research" territory. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:31, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree with the sentiment of sticking to sources to avoid OR but after reading about "fake news" I conclude that's not what Alex Jones does. He has an entirely different shtick. The sources are wrong in that regard, which is unfortunate. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:44, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
Exemplo347, and what are the sources saying the definition of 'fake news' is, exactly? As Chris troutman points out, one source's fake-news is another source's biased-and-incorrect-news-but-not-deliberately-falsified (contrast with the slightly distinct concept of errata). And more importantly, since this article is about 'fake news websites' and not really about 'fake news' the broad metaphor, what is the definition of a 'fake news website' according to the sources? See NYT and WaPo definitions up above, in the first discussion-comment. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 23:53, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
It's not the job of Wikipedia editors to assess what Reliable Sources are publishing. That's Original Research. If we as editors pick & choose a definition that suits our beliefs, the integrity of the encyclopaedia suffers. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:54, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
NYT says www.facebook.com currently contains "misinformation" and suffers from a role in propagating a veritable "tide of fake news".[31] Does that mean we can add www.facebook.com to the list, as a 'fake news website'? Or does that mean, you are wrong when you assert that wikipedians should just ram any website that any reliable source says has 'fake news' contained therein, onto our list-icle here? I believe 100% that the NYT is 100% correct there are fake news stories currently on www.facebook.com -- but because I understand the *definition* of 'fake news website' there is no urge for me to add that URL to this list-article. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 00:05, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree we should pick a definition. I don't, however, feel that we should CREATE a definition. One should be chosen from an existing Reliable Source. Exemplo347 (talk) 00:15, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
But that's exactly what you're advocating. You have yet to produce any quality sources, let alone a majority of reliable sources, which actually state that InfoWars intentionally publishes hoax stories. WP:SYNTH expressly forbids drawing conclusions based on an editor's own personal conclusions not actually stated by the sources. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:28, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
AQFK, while I agree with you about the lack of intent being key (which is almost impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt except in the most clearcut cases such as 70news and DenverGuardian), the overall problem is not so clear-cut. Exemplo347 is arguing for the normal use of sources: if source X says that website Y contains quote 'fake news' unquote, then as long as source X is WP:RS then we have a WP:NOTEWORTHY factoid, other things being equal. The problem is that quite a few of the sources are using *differing definitions* of what the phrase 'fake news' actually means. And furthermore, there is a lot of conflation between the concept of a 'fake news website' (msnbc.co) and the distinct concept of 'a website which contains fake news' (which of course includes (msnbc.co but also includes facebook ... and depending on the source's political bias might include MSNBC for a right-leaning-partisan source and might include FOX News for a left-leaning partisian source!). So we have the Zimdar 'source' (she later retracted her list) which tars not just InfoWars but also Breitbart and even ReState as being 'fake news' ... but if you read Zimdar's fine print, it just say that type-3-fake-news-per-Zimdar websites are those which "tend to have clickbait-y headlines" but otherwise do not publish falsehoods, let alone deliberate falsehoods. Only by the type-1-fake-news-websites-per-Zimdar would belong in our wikipedia article, if we were being strict about definitional issues. (InfoWars she classified in two categories -- and a lot of her classifications were not in ANY categories which people reporting on her work later retracted before Zimdar herself retracted all her categorizations.) So it si a pretty fine mess. But I am sympathetic to the point Exemplo347 is impliciting making: if we do NOT take what sources say at face value, then we ARE in dire risk of committing WP:OR, whereas if we DO take what sources say at face value -- especially if we are cavalier about definitional issues -- they we are also screwing up. I also think that having a list of URLs that we *know* are not merely places where incorrect information is found, but are in fact very often clickbait scams, is Just The Wrong Thing for wikipedia to be even doing. I don't have any easy answers here, but see Talk:Fake news website for some definitional discussions, especially the comments in the no-consensus RfC. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 20:25, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
I encourage people to read Chris Troutman's response. You might argue that Infowars is engaged in propaganda, not fake news - thus the site is a participant int he spread of fake news but is not a fake news site as such. That is a perfectly reasonable view. But, as Chris says, the sources call it a fake news site. That may be unfortunate. The sources may indeed be wrong. But it's not our problem to fix through application of our own interpretation of the primary data. Guy (Help!) 15:08, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm new to Wikipedia. Who makes the decision and how is it made?GuyWhoLikesToHaveFun (talk) 19:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
@GuyWhoLikesToHaveFun: Like almost every decision involving Wikipedia articles, it's decided by consensus - a reasoned examination of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Regards Exemplo347 (talk) 19:18, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
I think he means, when will this RfC get closed, and who will the closer be? It was opened December 17th, and traditionally these things run for 30 days, and then a neutral WP:ADMIN who did not vote in the RfC, and was not involved in editing the List of fake news websites or closely-related articles, will assess the policy-backed arguments (see WP:PAG and WP:NOTVOTE) and make the call. The call might be revisited again, usually six months later when additional WP:SOURCES have had time to be written and published. After this RfC close-assessment happens, we will have an idea of whether there is consensus to include/exclude, and as Exemplo347 says, thereafter discussions will continue onward, about exactly what the consensus is for other aspects. For instance, IF we remove them here, should we NOT cover them in fake news website? if we KEEP them here, should we give them their OWN 'conspiracy theory fake news site' subsection of the article, rather than lumping them in with the clickbait scams like Denver Guardian and the brandjacking scams like ABCnews.com.co and the pump and dump scams like Bloomberg.ma alphabetically? But in the short term, ping Guy who is an involved admin, should we request a close on this RfC now, at whatever noticeboard accepts that kind of begging-for-RfC-closers, or leave it open for another week? I'm guessing the inauguration and post-inauguration might send new eyeballs to this article, but I don't know whether the new eyeballs will have any new policy-backed arguments to offer. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:NOR

Remember folks, we do not have to define fake news and decide what sites meet our criteria. We have to review what reliable independent sources say. If all reliable sources that discuss the fake news status of a site agree that it's fake, then we can say that in Wikipedia's voice. If some do but others analyse the claim and dispute it, then we attribute the categorisation and discuss the dissent. That is policy. Guy (Help!) 12:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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