An onslaught of articles masquerading as satire have been successfully duping thousands through social media over the last few months.
Fake news headlines masquerading as satire have been plaguing social media sites like Facebook recently. Such websites publish “click-baity” headlines and fake articles and use them to attract thousands of visitors to their websites where they make money sponsored advertising.
Whilst the articles are fake, the website owners dubiously label them as satirical, even though they are fully aware that many will take the articles at face value.
News Hound, Huzlers, Empire Sports (links not included) are a few examples of dozens of websites that have sprung up recently offering a combination of fake news headlines, weak satire, or both.
Jockey accidentally euthanized after broken leg, scientists clone dinosaur, zero gravity day on April 4th and SOS sign picked up on Google Earth are just a selection of fake headlines that have managed to break viral recently.
Whilst humour is subjective, most would agree that the satirical element to these articles isn’t particularly obvious, which is evident in the fact that thousands of users are sharing the articles on their social media accounts under the incorrect assumption that the stories are genuine, not spoof.
Essentially, few people realise that the article is supposed to be funny.
If you see an article and you’re not sure if its real, there are several different things you can do –
– Check with a reputable news outlet before spreading
– Check the website for a disclaimer to ensure it is a real news website
– Check other content posted on the site to see if the stores are genuine or fake
– “Google” the story in question or ask a hoax-busting site for verification
We recommend that our readers avoid sharing such fake news articles as the people behind these sites make lots of money by posting fake websites and fooling people, and the more successful this business model proves, the more people that will do it which will ultimately lead to more people posting misinformation across the Internet.
And we don’t want that, do we?
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