Analysis

As of a few hours ago all links to articles on the notorious fake news website yournewswire.com seem to be getting redirected to newspunch.com. The move has not been officially announced on the site as far as we can tell. It seems likely the move is an effort to dodge various fake news filters on social media and in search…

Twitter user @BelfastBrit0151 posted following tweet and image: @AldiUK Well I won't be shopping in Aldi anymore. everyone should retweet this. pic.twitter.com/Oko64gla7T -- Ethan (@BelfastBrit0151) August 19, 2017 The image in the tweet (archived here) shows a till in an Aldi supermarket with a printed sign affixed to it that reads "NO ALCOHOL IS ABLE TO BE SERVED ON THIS…

In the wake of today's terror attack with a van in Barcelona both current president Trump and former president Obama sent out tweets expressing solidarity. And even though Obama's tweet was sent out about 75 minutes after Trump's it has already gotten more likes and retweets: Michelle and I are thinking of the victims and their families in Barcelona. Americans…

Legendary fact checking website Snopes.com just posted an appeal to their site asking for donations via a GoFundMe page. Apparently the company or person they contracted with to run their website is holding it hostage and is refusing to pass on the advertising revenue. Right now it looks like there are no ads running on the site at all. The…

On June 15th and 16th Lead Stories/Trendolizer was present at a TechForum event in Brussels where fact-checkers and journalists from several European countries came together to discuss fact-checking, debunking and the "fake news" phenomenon. One of the more interesting ideas to come out of a brainstorming session was the realization that the people liking and sharing fake news on Facebook…

In a delicious twist of irony a famous satirical fake news website manages to take down or seriously hamper dozens of "real" fake news sites using nothing but copyright law. Here at Lead Stories we have a long history of debunking articles originating from "The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense", a website that constantly publishes fake news and hoaxes…

This is too funny: notorious hoax website The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense published an article that is (for once) mostly true: "BREAKING: Liberal Troll Responsible For Tucker Carlson Death Hoax Admits Who Paid Him". It is a reaction to the recent Tucker Carlson death hoax we debunked earlier as one of the first fact checking websites to do…

We are currently at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia in Italy and we wanted to use the occasion to showcase the way in which we find and choose most of the fake news stories that we debunk every day here at Lead Stories. The secret sauce behind our method is the Trendolizer engine that we developed in-house. This tool…

UPDATE July 13th 2017: A new version of this hoax is going around, read about it here. On March 18th 2017 a death hoax started trending on Facebook claiming British Comedian Rowan Atkinson had died. That this claim is false has been pointed out on this site and on others but that is not what this article is about. Celebrity…