Analysis

One of the Macedonians identified by Nieuwscheckers and Lead Stories to be behind a network of sites publishing hate-mongering fake news turns out to be a major in the military intelligence service of Macedonia. Another one is an active-duty soldier. Their activities are currently being investigated by the Ministry of Defense. A third one is still employed as a police…

Back in November of 2018 fact checking sites Lead Stories and Nieuwscheckers collaborated to map a network of Macedonian fake news websites that had published thousands and thousands of articles since 2016, mostly stolen from other places, many of them fake and often promoting hate, racism or conspiracy theories. The stories racked up at least 7.1 million engagements on various…

The joint investigation by Lead Stories and Nieuwscheckers into a network of Macedonian fake news sites reached a dead end last month: we knew most of the sites involved and had a pretty good idea how their posts were being spread via fake Twitter accounts but we had no idea who was behind it all. Until we noticed the tattoo...…

A Macedonian military man appears to be one of the driving forces behind a network of fake news websites that reached millions of people with articles often inciting hatred against muslims and migrants. Together with friends and family he has been spreading his messages via Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes under their own names, sometimes using fake identities. A look behind…

Sherlock Holmes had his magnifying glass. Hercule Poirot relied on his "little grey cells". But the 21st century internet detective needs more than that to catch the bad guys. In this article we present some of the tools and tricks we used to figure out who was behind a large network of websites endlessly reposting fake, sensationalized or outdated stories…

Although Macedonian fake news merchants still generate thousands of Facebook likes and shares, the platform's recent measures against bad actors have drastically reduced their reach. The next step in the arms race takes the battle to Twitter. An investigation by Lead Stories and Nieuwscheckers into a network of fake news websites run by several Macedonians revealed a sprawling network of…

A few days ago BuzzFeed's Craig Silverman published his annual overview of the top 50 biggest on-line hoaxes of the previous year. Just like last year we used this list as a basis to do some analysis to see how Lead Stories did compared to other fact checking websites. But this year we used the full top 50 instead of…

Did actor and conservative commentator James Woods pass away? No, that's not true: his obituary was published by a new liberal satire website run by Christopher Blair on which he is planning to fake kill many more people in the near future. The story is not real, Woods is alive. The story was the first one the first one to…

Tara, Jesica, Ana, Lora: since a few weeks dozens of trolls on Twitter are dangling bait in front of American Trump supporters. Their goal: bring in as many clicks as possible for two commercial, (potentially Serbian) anti-islam websites. And it is working: in twelve days they reached a potential audience on Facebook of 3.8 milion users. Lead Stories went troll…

Yesterday Eli Saslow at the Washington Post wrote a fantastic article about Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has been trolling conservatives and Trump supporters online for years and occasionally even made a living out of it. Blair's main website and Facebook page are named "America's Last Line of Defense" and he uses them to publish various articles and…

YourNewsWire used to be one of the most notorious websites spreading fake news, often by using bits and pieces of real news articles from other websites to create new articles which would then get a headline and introduction that would greatly overstate or even outright lie about what was really happening. Earlier this year Poynter did a profile about the…

Recently the BBC World Service's "Trending" programme did a two part story about Christopher Blair, the liberal troll and internet hoaxer well known to anybody who has been following Lead Stories' reporting on him. Christopher has made it his day job to troll conservatives and Trump supporters online with outrageous stories that get them so excited they like and share…

Readers of this site are probably aware that some of the content found on Macedonian fake news websites is often copied directly from the satirical sites and Facebook pages of Christopher Blair and his friends. On those sites and pages they write over the top fake stories specifically designed to get less intellectually gifted Trump supporters and conservatives excited enough…

A story about protesters vandalizing Brett Kavanaugh's house to the tune of $11,000 in damages went viral about four days ago and was first debunked by Lead Stories. It originated from a liberal satire website run by Christopher Blair but went massively viral in part because a copy of the article appeard on a fake news website using the logo…

Less than two weeks ago we reported on a network of prank websites centered around thefakenewsgenerator.com being blocked as spam by Facebook. But now it seems the site is gearing up for a restart by using the advanced hacking technique of adding a dash to the domain name in order to get around the filters. Here is our report on…

Recently a rash of new viral fake news stories started turning up on Facebook, all from sites associated with thefakenewsgenerator.com, a site run by a man named Justin Hook. He was profiled by The Daily Dot only a few days ago: This fake news generator is a head-turning troll machine Fake news is still a sensitive subject. Nearly 70 percent…

COLORADO SPRINGS/BRUSSELS/LONDON -- Fact checking website Lead Stories (leadstories.com) and artificial intelligence startup Factmata (factmata.com) are happy to announce they will be collaborating in the fight against fake news by exchanging data and sharing digital tools. Both companies are strongly convinced the cooperation will be mutually beneficial and both will gain valuable resources to help them accomplish their respective goals.…

COLORADO SPRINGS/BRUSSELS/HOUSTON -- Fact checking website Lead Stories (leadstories.com) and the fakery education and debunking Facebook page Unfakery (Facebook.com/Unfakery) are happy to announce they will be collaborating in the fight against fake news by exchanging data and sharing digital tools. Both organisations are strongly convinced the cooperation will be mutually beneficial and both will gain valuable resources to help them…

Regular readers of this site are doubtlessly familiar with notorious fake news website YourNewsWire.com. Over the years we have debunked countless stories from it, and we are not the only fact checking website that regularily took aim at hoaxes spread by the site. But now it looks like the site has had its reach fatally reduced by Facebook around the…

Another one of Christopher Blair's websites bites the dust. Lead Stories just learned that links to any article on the website "America's Last Line of Defense" are now considered "spam" by Facebook. The website in question was satirical in nature with several disclaimers, hints and warnings spread all over the page (including in the header). It published over-the-top fake stories…