Professional Documents
Culture Documents
COMPILED BY
Liliana Bounegru
Jonathan Gray
Tommaso Venturini
Michele Mauri
1
A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS
Compiled by Liliana Bounegru, Jonathan Gray, Tommaso Venturini
and Michele Mauri
This project would not have been possible without the contributions
of researchers from the following institutions:
Centre for Journalism Studies, University of Ghent
Citizen Data Lab, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
Density Design, Politecnico di Milano
Digital Methods Initiative, University of Amsterdam
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en
Automatique (INRIA)
Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath
Laboratoire dtude des Sciences et des Techniques (STS-Lab),
Universit de Lausanne
Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences Innovations Socits
(LISIS), Universit Paris-Est Marne-la-Valle
Mdialab, Sciences Po, Paris
Techno-Anthropology Lab, Aalborg University Copenhagen
University of Siegen
Contributors
Co-investigators
Liliana Bounegru, University of Ghent, University of Groningen 7 Introduction
Jonathan Gray, University of Bath
Tommaso Venturini, Univ Lyon, Inria, ENS de Lyon, CNRS, UCB
Michele Mauri, Density Design, Politecnico di Milano
INTRODUCTION
[3] See, John Naughton, offending content;[3] and a host of new startups and technical
What is fake news? And what can be done about it? Facebook and Twitter
fixes from authenticated content to automated fact-
could pay the price
Depending on who you ask, fake news is said to represent for hate speech, The checking projects.[4]
a step-change in information warfare; an emerging form of Guardian: https://www.
theguardian.com/com-
cynical profiteering; an engine for energising alt-right and mentisfree/2017/mar/19/ Across these different kinds of responses, observers
other digitally mediated grassroots political mobilisations john-naughton-germany-
agree that fake news cannot be straightforwardly defined.
fine-social-media-sites-
around the world; a partisan battle cry for a new liberal facebook-twitter-hate- Fake news comes in many different shades. This need
ministry of truth; an unwanted byproduct of the online speech
not be taken as proof of the futility of investigating this
platforms which organise our digital societies; or a canary [4] See, for example, Full Fact, phenomenon. On the contrary: accepting that there is no
call signalling a collapse of consensus around established The State of Automated
easy way to demarcate between fake from non-fake
Factchecking, https://
institutions and processes of knowledge production, fullfact.org/automated across all cases opens interesting research opportunities. It
[1] See, for example Robert
heralding a new post-truth era in politics and public life. and http://www.512tech.
is precisely because its forms and contents are designed to
com/technology/austin-
Darnton, The True History
of Fake News, The New
startup-wants-end-fake- mimic those of mainstream media and precisely because
York Review of Books,
According to some commentators fake news is just old wine news-and-fake-every-
it travels through similar circuits that fake news offers us
thing-else-the-internet/
February 2017, available at: in new bottles and similar misinformation phenomena EcchWFgrl4PQmjPvm- the occasion to study not just the strategies and formats of
http://www.nybooks.com/
daily/2017/02/13/the-true-
have existed for at least as long as the printing press and kzycJ/
fakeness, but the politics and composition of the media and
history-of-fake-news/ other communication technologies through which they information environments of the digital age more generally.
[2] See, for example, Sky
circulate.[1] Others suggest that new online platforms
Views: Facebook's fake accelerate and supercharge their circulation in a way This guide aims to enrich public debate and catalyse
news threatens democ-
racy, Sky News: http://
which introduces hitherto unprecedented challenges and collective inquiry around this rapidly evolving and highly
news.sky.com/story/sky- dynamics.[2] Proposed responses include new media literacy, contested issue by suggesting different ways in which it
views-democracy-burns-
as-facebook-lets-fake-
educational and fact-checking initiatives; new laws, policies can be empirically studied, mapped and investigated online.
news-thrive-10652711 and fines for technology companies who fail to remove
INTRODUCTION 7
Ultimately our hope is not just to provide better accounts of While online and platform metrics often serve to take
the issue of fake news and phenomena associated with it, measure of engagement by means of what Theodore Porter
but also to contribute to more substantive forms of public calls thin descriptions i.e. aggregated quantities such
engagement around it. We hope this guide will contribute as total likes, shares, posts we suggest different ways of
to facilitating broader public debate and involvement exploring how different publics engage with and ascribe
around processes of reshaping platforms and policies, laws meaning to fake news and how this moves and mobilises
and infrastructures, technologies and standards that are different actors in the process. In doing so while we start
implicated in the circulation of fake news phenomenon. our inquiry with fake news, we end up surfacing a wide
This includes remaining attentive to possible unintended range of grassroots political, media and participatory
consequences of these different responses, as well as other cultures online and the social and political issues around
interests and concerns. which they assemble. Some of these may challenge and
prompt a rethinking of our ideas of the forms and formats of
The guide explores the notion that fake news is not just grassroots political action online.
another type of content that circulates online, but that it is
precisely the character of this online circulation and reception We have adopted the metaphor of the field guide in the
that makes something into fake news. In this sense fake tradition of a number of recent guides which transpose the
news may be considered not just in terms of the form or language and imagery of mapping places, flora and fauna
content of the message, but also in terms of the mediating [5] For a recent overview see onto the cloud, digital infrastructures and life online.[5]
Shannon Matterns Cloud
infrastructures, platforms as and participatory cultures which and Field, Places Journal:
However this metaphor stands in need of some qualification.
facilitate its circulation. In this sense, the significance of fake https://placesjournal.org/ Many classical natural historical field guides aspire to
article/cloud-and-field/
news cannot be fully understood apart from its circulation online. provide systematic taxonomies of natural phenomena by
It is the register of this circulation that also enables us to taking them out of their contexts in order to abstract and
trace how material that starts its life as niche satire can be compare their features. By contrast with our guide we aim
repackaged as hyper-partisan clickbait to generate advertising to do precisely the opposite not to decontextualise, but to
money and then continue life as an illustration of dangerous recontextualise fake news phenomena by suggesting ways
political misinformation. to follow them in the wild: as they travel across the web,
search engines, digital platforms, fact-checking initiatives
As a consequence this field guide ecourages a shift from and news websites.
focusing on the formal content of fake news in isolation to
understanding the contexts in which it circulates online. We do not set out to provide a definitive single set of
This shift points to the limits of a deficit model approach watercolour portraits, anatomical illustrations, cartographic
which might imply that fake news thrives only because charts, satellite imagery or infrastructural diagrams of the
of a deficit of factual information. In the guide we suggest phenomenon in question or even lists of characteristic
new ways of mapping and responding to fake news beyond features which may be used for the purposes of identification.
identifying and fact-checking suspect claims including Instead we illustrate a range of methods and procedures
thicker accounts of circulation as a way to develop a richer which readers may use in order to explore fake news
understanding of how fake news moves and mobilises phenomena online for themselves. As part of this process we
people, more nuanced accounts of fakeness and responses wish to extend the repertoire of mapping practices which are
which are better attuned to the phenomenon. publicly available to make sense of fake news online and in
8 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS INTRODUCTION 9
this sense the graphics that we provide can be understood as We hope that the recipes in this guide will enrich
temporary placeholders to encourage further exploration. investigations of fake news in a way which has affinities with
a common narrative approach in mystery fiction namely the
We also draw attention to different ways of examining how scenario that in pursuit of solving an apparently simple crime,
things are categorised and labelled as fake news and the politics the plot thickens, the cast grows, the questions multiply and
of these practices of classification. In this sense we hope to there are unexpected twists or changes of perspective. By
[6] See Philip E. Agre, To- cultivate what has been called critical technical practice[6] following the production, circulation and responses to fake
ward a Critical Technical
Practice: Lessons Learned
which in this case would include reflection on the use of news online we may end up being drawn into things that
in Trying to Reform AI, in digital methods and digital data and how these not only serve we do not set out to investigate: whether the media strategies
Geof Bowker, Les Gasser,
Leigh Star, and Bill Turner
to designate phenomena which can be straightforwardly and of fake news publishers, propagandists, trolls or bots; the
(eds), Bridging the Great independently picked out, but how these very methods may commercial and technical architectures of online content;
Divide: Social Science,
Technical Systems, and Co-
also be involved in the process of articulating what fake news the politics and dynamics of viral content; and how social
operative Work, Mahwah, is. As Shannon Mattern puts it, in undertaking to investigate life adapts, evolves and innovates in response to some of the
NJ: Erlbaum, 1997. Avail-
able at: http://polaris.gseis.
fake news online we should be aware of the shadows cast worlds biggest online platforms and websites. In this sense,
ucla.edu/pagre/critical. by our presence as explorers in the field.[7] And rather than it will be clear that fake news involves more than a few rogue
html
producing maps for the sake of producing maps, we should producers or state conspiracies and raises important and
[7] Shannon Mattern, Cloud consider what maps do, who and what they are for and difficult questions about the role of digital technologies in
and Field, Places Journal:
https://placesjournal.org/
the effects that they produce as social, cultural and political society and how we mutually shape and are shaped by them.
article/cloud-and-field/ devices.
In Edgar Allan Poes classic mystery story The Purloined
Insofar as we focus on providing procedures for inquiry Letter, the prefect of police G and his colleagues
rather than pictures of the phenomena, this guide may search for a letter said to contain scandalous information
also be considered a kind of recipe book. Recent research behind wallpaper, under carpets, in the legs of furniture
suggests that there is an interesting relation between the and in cushions, only to eventually find the letter hiding
documentation of recipes and the emergence of procedural in plain sight. In a similar vein, we may consider the
[9] See, Noortje Marres, The
knowledge in the early modern period such that practices Redistribution of Methods:
algorithmically mediated circulation of fake news on digital
of writing down processes for cooking and craft are On Intervention in Digital platforms in terms of what Noortje Marres and Carolin
Social Research, Broadly
entangled with the history of the emergence of scientific Conceived, The Socio-
Gerlitz characterise as distributed accomplishment or what
[8] See, for example, the work method.[8] Over the past few decades the metaphors of the logical Review, June 2012; Mike Ananny and Kate Crawford describe as relational
of Pamela Smith and her and Mike Ananny and Kate
colleagues on the Making
recipe and the cookbook have also become popular in Crawford, Seeing Without
achievement.[9] This entails a shift from seeing in systems
and Knowing project relation to software programming. In our guide, we illustrate Knowing: Limitations of the as a kind of looking under the hood, to seeing across
at Columbia University: Transparency Ideal and its
http://recipes.hypotheses.
different approaches to mapping and investigating fake news Application to Algorithmic
a diverse range elements which are implicated in the
org/7430 and http://www. online through a series of methodological recipes. As with Accountability, New Media patterning of collective life online.
makingandknowing.org/ and Society, December
many cookery books, our aim is not just to support readers in 2016.
following the specific recipes that we present, but rather to Many of the researchers who have contributed to the guide
[10] M. S. Abildgaard, A.
use these recipes to illustrate a certain approach to cooking Birkbak, L. Bounegru, J.
share a background in a field called Science and Technology
with the hope that readers are inspired to adapt, modify and Gray, M. Jacomy, A. K. Studies (STS). Some of the lines of inquiry pursued in the
Madsen, A. K. Munk (forth-
venture beyond them. We also include a number of serving coming) Fake News: Seven
guide are informed by a forthcoming paper exploring what
suggestions about how they may be put to work Lines of Inquiry. STS can bring to the study of fake news.[10] The recipes are
10 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS INTRODUCTION 11
also informed by a digital methods research approach that issues and controversies as they unfold on digital media, as
has developed through an engagement with this field and well as of the mediating capacities of platforms, algorithms
which many of us have contributed to through our teaching and infrastructures which shape life online.
[11] See, for example, Richard and research.[11] We also draw upon our fields interest
Rogers, Digital Methods,
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
in public engagement and participation around digital The data sprint format has also helped us to catalyse new
2013. technologies and data infrastructures.[12] As such our focus is experimentation and empirical work in a comparatively
[12] See, for example, Noortje
less on advancing particular legal or technical fixes, than on short period of time a distinct advantage given the
Marres, Material Partic- facilitating processes of public engagement and democratic pace of developments around fake news. For this we
ipation: Technology, the
Environment and Everyday
deliberation including provoking curiosity about different are immensely grateful to researchers, graduates and
Publics, London: Palgrave ways of seeing the issue and imagination about the different students at Density Design (Politecnico di Milano, Italy),
Macmillan, 2012.
ways in which we might respond. the Digital Methods Initiative (University of Amsterdam,
Netherlands), the European Journalism Centre, the
The material in this guide has been produced through Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences Innovations Socits
[13] See Tommaso Venturini,
Anders Munk and Axel
a series of data sprints and research workshops in (Universit Paris-Est, France), the mdialab (Sciences Po,
Meunier, Data-Sprint: A Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Milan, hosted by members Paris, France), the Media of Cooperation research group
Public Approach to Digital
Research in C. Lury, P.
of the Public Data Lab. The data sprint is a short form (University of Siegen, Germany), the STS-Lab (University
Clough, M. Michael, R. working format that has emerged at the intersection of Lausanne, Switzerland), the Techno-Anthropology Lab
Fensham, S. Lammes, A.
Last, & E. Uprichard (Eds.)
between Science and Technology Studies and New Media (Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark) and the Utrecht
Interdisciplinary Research Studies, drawing on approaches associated with open-source University without whose energy, creativity and dedication
Methods, London: Rout-
ledge, 2017.
software development, open data and civic hacking in order this project would not have been possible.
to convene a range of actors to collaborate around the co-
[14] Jonathan Gray, Liliana
Bounegru and Lucy Cham-
production of data and research projects including between
bers (Eds.) The Data Jour- fields of practice with different outlooks.[13]
nalism Handbook, Sebas-
topol, CA: OReilly Media,
Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru, Tommaso Venturini
2012, available at: http:// Two of us have a background in data journalism, having London, March 2017
datajournalismhandbook.
org/
co-edited The Data Journalism Handbook and undertaken
various initiatives in this field.[14] This guide builds on a
[15] Upon being invited to
become Director of the
long-standing interest in supporting productive encounters
Argentine National Li- between data journalists and digital researchers. While fake
brary at a moment which
coincided with the dete-
news seems like a remarkably ripe area for experimentation
rioration of his eyesight, between these two fields, just as the writer Jorge Luis Borges
Borges famously wrote: No
one should read self-pity
lamented being granted books and night at one touch,[15]
or reproach / into this it is not without a sense of irony that we note that as public
statement of the majesty
/ of God; who with such
attention around this issue grows, fake news websites are
splendid irony / Granted beginning to vanish leading to proposals for a fake news
me books and night at one
touch. See J. L. Borges,
archive amongst our contributing researchers. Happily the
Poem of the Gifts in approaches and analytical techniques in this guide may be
Selected Poems: Volume
2, London: Penguin Books,
used to inform collaborations between data journalists and
2000, p. 95. digital researchers around the study of other contentious
12 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS INTRODUCTION 13
Chapter #1
MAPPING
FAKE NEWS HOTSPOTS
ON FACEBOOK
Do fact-checking initiatives
reach the publics of fake news
on Facebook?
of recipes for tracing the circulation of fake fake news dissemination machine
Insane, Unintentionally
Gigantic, Hyperpartisan)
Political-Media Machine,
news on Facebook. The focus is on circulation and responses to it, is what the
Agust 2016, The New
York Times: https://www.
nytimes.com/2016/08/28/
because false and misleading knowledge claims recipes in this section enable to
magazine/inside-face-
books-totally-insane-un-
intentionally-gigantic-hy-
are not born fake news. To become fake explore. The first two recipes
perpartisan-political-me-
dia-machine.html
news they need to mobilise a large number of focus on mapping the publics
publics including witnesses, allies, likes and that are energised by fake news on Facebook, as
shares, as well as opponents to contest, flag well as the trajectories through which fake news
and debunk them. Facebooks architecture stories travel on Facebook. The third recipe
poses challenges to the study of circulation provides an approach to address the effectiveness
of content due to the nature of its access and of fact-checking initiatives in reaching the
permissions system. Hence we focus on tracing publics of fake news on Facebook. Through these
the publics of fake news through its most recipes we aim to gesture towards different ways
publicly accessible entities: pages and groups, of providing thicker accounts of circulation and
which may be considered to constitute already engagement around fake news on social media
assembled publics. beyond the thin descriptions of aggregated
Around the 2016 US presidential elections counts and metrics.
commentators have noted the emergence of
a Facebook-native, hyper-partisan political
media machine that was highly effective in
gathering large numbers of followers and
16 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 1: MAPPING FAKE NEWS HOTSPOTS
ON FACEBOOK 17
START
CHAPTER 1 RECIPE 1
list of 22 URLs of political fake input URLs in
news stories
Source: BuzzFeed News CrowdTangle
WHAT PUBLICS
DOES FAKE NEWS
output data
ANIMATE ON FACEBOOK?
that share the URLs
> Number of interactions
per each page or group
> Date of sharing
of the story
a
BEFORE STARTING identify key related WHICH MEDIA AND POLITICAL
events with
This recipe takes as a starting point a list of EVENTS ARE SUCCESSFUL IN
visualise
Google News
fake news stories. There are different ways of SETTING THE FAKE NEWS
obtaining these lists including starting with AGENDA?
existing lists as well as creating your own. To
illustrate this recipe we use an already existing
list of 22 fake news stories about various political b
issues pertaining to the 2016 presidential
WHICH FACEBOOK PAGES
import data in
elections in the US that generated most
visualise
engagement on Facebook. These were identified RAWGraphs AND GROUPS SHARE FAKE
by BuzzFeed News. NEWS?
import data in
which they editorialise (a ). Next we identify DO FACEBOOK PUBLICS HAVE
visualise
Gephi
the most prominent Facebook pages and groups PREFERRED STORY THEMES?
that share these stories (b ). We also explore
whether certain publics have preferred story
themes (c) and profile the publics that are d
energised by fake news stories about the US WHAT KINDS OF PUBLICS ARE
visualise
manually categorise
elections (d )? facebook pages ENERGISED BY FAKE NEWS?
output data
SUCCESSFUL IN SETTING
3 October
ABCNEWS.COM.CO 5 November
THELASTLINEOFDEFENSE.ORG
THE FAKE NEWS AGENDA?
Actor Bill Murray Announces 2016
Presidential Run Van Full Of Illegals Shows Up To Vote
PACIFISM 11 October Clinton At SIX Polling Places, Still
WORLDNEWSDAILYREPORT.COM
Think Voter Fraud Is A Myth? 11 December
Timeline of best performing fake VOTER FRAUD, ANTI-IMMIGRATION SENTIMENT
ABCNEWS.COM.CO
ISIS Leader Calls for American
news stories about the US elections Muslim Voters to Support Hillary 5 November
Obama Signs Executive Order
Clinton Banning The Pledge Of Allegiance In
on Facebook in 2016 and events they ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT THELASTLINEOFDEFENSE.ORG Schools Nationwide
editorialise. Successful fake news 14 October
WHOA! Hillary Caught On Hot Mic NATIONALIST SENTIMENT
Trashing Beyonce With RACIAL SLURS!
stories appear to exploit populist 7 September
WORLDNEWSDAILYREPORT.COM ANTI-CLINTON
12 December
BURRARDSTREETJOURNAL.COM 5 November ABCNEWS.COM.CO
themes such as anti-establishment RUPAUL CLAIMS TRUMP TOUCHED
Obama Signs Executive Order Declaring
President Obama Confirms He Will HIM INAPPROPRIATELY IN THE DENVER GUARDIAN
sentiment, nationalist and anti- Refuse To Leave Office If Trump Is 1990S FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Investigation Into Election Results;
Elected Revote Planned For Dec. 19th
immigration sentiment as well as
MISOGYNY
Leaks Found Dead in Apparent
PRESIDENTIAL RACE CORRUPTION OF POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT
18 September 15 October Murder-Suicide
perceived or projected weaknesses of
Dead In Jail Cell Endorses Donald Trump for Hillary Clinton In 2013: I Would Like To See
22 November
ANTI-CLINTON President, Releases Statement People Like Donald Trump Run For Office;
23 July CORRUPTION OF THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT Theyre Honest And Cant Be Bought ABCNEWS.COM.CO
BIZSTANDARDNEWS.COM PRO-ENTREPRENEURIALIST SENTIMENT Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: I
8 March
Graham Says Christians Must Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trumps Rally
REACT365.COM ANTI-CLINTON
Support Trump or Face Death Camps
Obama passed law for grandparents ANTI-DEMOCRAT 25 July
to get all their grandchildren every KYPO6.COM
weekend
N/A
Pope Francis Shocks World,
11 March Endorses Hillary Clinton for
President, Releases Statement
HEAVIERMETAL.NET ANTI-TRUMP 29 July
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE To BURRARDSTREETJOURNAL.COM
Reunite And Release Anti Donald Trump Claims America Should Never
Trump Album Have Given Canada Its Independence
ANTI-TRUMP
NATIONALIST SENTIMENT
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Events
Trump Says Sexual Assault Allegations
14 Oct
are "Made-Up Stories"
IB Times Donald Trump continues to accuse Democrats of voter fraud.
On Saturday 5th November, Trump claimed the late opening of 7 Nov
Michelle Obama denounces a voting site in a Latino neighorhood of Las Vegas due
Trump's comment on women to long lines pointed to a "rigged system."
NY Times Democracy Now
ENGAGEMENT? WOMEN4TRUMP
output data
Continuous Graph
DO FACEBOOK PUBLICS HAVE in energising publics as well as whether
visualise
Layout Algorithm
Gephi
PREFERRED STORY THEMES? publics have preferred story themes.
for Handy Network
Visualization De-
signed for the Ge-
phi Software, June
2014, PLoS ONE:
http://journals.
plos.org/plosone/
article?id=10.1371/
journal.
pone.0098679
output data
d
WHAT KINDS OF PUBLICS ARE
visualise
manually categorise
facebook pages ENERGISED BY FAKE NEWS?
BY FAKE NEWS?
Actor Republican
OTHER Politician
Types of Facebook publics animated Italian Climate Page Critical Liberal News / Republican
For Liberty
and Property
White For
Lives Information
Against Trump Against
Republicans
News news News News
by fake news, according to a manual Left Skeptics Dedicated
Aggregators
Matter Freedom
to the
classification of pages that share fake Philipines
Againt
Gun
news items. Notable are grassroots Owners
Journalist
activists for a variety of issues, SOCIAL CHANGE Against ENTERTAINERS
News News Alternative
Pro Latino Human Progessives Aggregator News Mainstream Anti-conservatism US Patriots
political candidate loyalists as well as rights Media
entertainers. Against Gun
Control
Against Gun Advocates Anonymous
Violence
Against
Corruption
Non-PC News
Bernie Loyalists
DISCUSSION SPACE
Political Anti
Commentary establishment
Politcal
Commentary
Anti-Democrat
BUSINESS MUSIC/ENTERTAIMENT
Punk Tattoo Fashion COMMUNITY
Spritual Democrat Community Pro Military
HIERARCY
Community
Bussiness Motivational
Speaker Progessive
CATEGORY
Community
Dating app
Sub-category Survivalist
Republican Community
FACEBOOK PAGES
Pro-Black
PER CATEGORY
Religious
OCCUPY MOVEMENT
1
2
3 CLICKBAIT
WOMEN-FOCUSED
CHAPTER 1 RECIPE 1
Clinton Banning The Pledge Of Allegiance In WOMEN4TRUMP
ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT THELASTLINEOFDEFENSE.ORG Schools Nationwide
WHOA! Hillary Caught On Hot Mic NATIONALIST SENTIMENT NO Hillary for 2016
TRUMP - SPEAK OUT
14 October Trashing Beyonce With RACIAL SLURS!
7 September 12 December AGAINST ISLAMIZATION
WORLDNEWSDAILYREPORT.COM ANTI-CLINTON OF AMERICA
BURRARDSTREETJOURNAL.COM 5 November ABCNEWS.COM.CO
RUPAUL CLAIMS TRUMP TOUCHED NEVER
President Obama Confirms He Will Obama Signs Executive Order Declaring Sicilians For
HIM INAPPROPRIATELY IN THE DENVER GUARDIAN HILLARY Donald Trump
Refuse To Leave Office If Trump Is 1990S FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Investigation Into Election Results; CLINTON
Elected MISOGYNY Revote Planned For TRUMP FORCE ONE
Dec. 19th
Leaks Found Dead in Apparent
PRESIDENTIAL RACE
15 October
CORRUPTION OF POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT Veterans for Donald Trump
18 September Murder-Suicide TRUMP OF CHAMPIONS
SERVING SUGGESTIONS
BREAKING Romanian Hacker With ENDING THE FED Who Wanna Leave America DONALD TRUMP
Hillary Clinton Revolution
CONSERVATIVESTATE.COM ANTI-IMMIGRANT COMMANDER IN CHIEF !!!! VOTE TRUMP ONLY -
Access To Clinton Emails Found Pope Francis Shocks World, The Australian Tea Party SENTIMENT
Donald Trump for President! THE AMERICAN PARTY RISING
Dead In Jail Cell Endorses Donald Trump for Hillary Clinton In 2013: I Would Like To See
ANTI-CLINTON
T 23 July
President, Releases Statement
CORRUPTION OF THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT
People Like Donald Trump Run For Office;
Theyre Honest And Cant Be Bought
22 November
F@CK YOU
HILLARY CLINTONDemocratic
ABCNEWS.COM.CO
D.L. Hughley
L
ANTI-TRUMP
NATIONALIST SENTIMENT
One Nation Under God To See People Like Donald Trump Run
Republican
AMOUNT OF INTERACTIONS
Females
Citizens
For Office; Theyre Honest And Cant
Patriotic
D.L. Hughley for TRUMP
For Trump Being Liberal
Be Bought Make America Party
January February March April May June Means Being Great Again
1 30 July August September October November December
P
23 Jul Trump attacks "corrupt establishment",
Donald Trump accepts nomination Beyonce, Jay Z & Clinton share a stage 5 Nov Donald Trump
states Clinton should be "locked up" 13 Oct
and media is in "war against him"
The Original Wake
NY Times PATRIOT Freedom Don't Donald J. Trump Donald Trump Commander D Donald Trump Protester
MY VOTE'S FOR Speaks Out:
FAKE NEWS POSTED
O
Up America in Chief 2020 TRUMP Reclaim
Wikileaks reveals Democratic Party 25 Jul Vox AMERICANS Come Free for PRESIDENT America's "I2016
Was Paid $3,500 To America
HILLARY IN
Protest
1
The Most Explosive WikiLeaks
Clinton Revelations30
(So Far)
No charge to Hillary Cinton and no further investigation over email scandal
FBI Director Comey
6 Nov
Friends Who
Trump's Rally"
28 Jul
Hillary Clinton accepts nomination Breitbart Like Donald J. Trump
Arizona Anti-Immigrant Sheriff to Deploy Deputies at Polling Places
The Guardian
The Resistance:
The Last Line
E Obama Signs Executive Order
Events
Trump Says Sexual Assault Allegations
14 Oct
Of Defense
Patriots for a Declaring Investigation Into Election
TrumpNation
are "Made-Up Stories"
Free Republic - Results; Revote Planned For Dec. 19th
R
IB Times Donald Trump continues to accuse Democrats of voter fraud. REPUBLICANS - CONSERVATIVES -
Google Search
input URL in
output data
output data for each URL
BEFORE STARTING > Fake news story URLs
> Facebook pages and > Fake news story URLs
groups > Facebook pages and
For this recipe it is recommended that a fake that share the URLs groups
> Number of followers that share the URLs
news story is taken as a starting point and the per page or group > Number of followers
> Date of sharing per page or group
URL or URLs or on which it is published are of the story > Date of sharing
of the story
identified. To illustrate this recipe we have input data to
selected as case studies two prominent stories input data to
RAWGraphs
about the 2016 US presidential elections, namely RAWGraphs
"Trump Offering Free One-Way Tickets to
Africa & Mexico for Those Who Wanna Leave
America," a story that exploits anti-immigrant visualise visualise
Rock Feed
Indie DaaDee
ALBUM" TRAVEL ON Magic 89.3
FACEBOOK?
98 Rock
Italian music and political pages. Bernie Sanders - Support from abroad
Boogat
FM 949
Occupy London
Occupy movement
Rock Feed No sharing of the story URL on Facebook from late May to early November
Music and/or Radio
Apartment Khunpa
Activism The Guitar Mag
ROCK Mundial
POSTS INTERACTIONS Rock Feed is sharing the story
both at the earliest as well as The Church of PUNK
at the end of the first wave of posting. Radioactivo 98.5
0 1588
Los Angeles Punk Museum
11/03/2016 APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER
Google Search
CHAPTER 1 RECIPE 2
clickbaitReposted
sites Version
sees the story being 0 1588
CIVILIZED.LIFE
recycled as clickbait by viral pages. ATRENDING.NET
Debunked version civilized.life
The publics sparked into being by the Exposing The Truth POSTS ON A SAME PAGE
fake news story and the debunked
POSTS ON FACEBOOK
version thereof do not overlap. QATARDAY.COM
INQUISITR.COM
Post Page that shares it theinquisitr
Qatar Day
PAKISTAN RISING
DIYHILFE.COM POLITICO.COM
Interactions
JimHeathTV
Mobbing Hilfe LionPublishers INEWS.CO.UK
mnsucollegedemocrats
Fake Story modernliberals theipaper
PolPreposterous
Debunk
HOPEFORNIGERIAONLINE.COM politico TRUEAMERICANS.ME
CHAPTER 1 RECIPE 2
Published the 11th of November 2016 on viralmugshot.com
Trump Offering Free One-Way Tickets to Africa & Mexico
for Those Who Wanna Leave America
Apartment Khunpa
icates instances of Facebo
ok sharing in late February
The first repost has been Don P
published by myhiphop.org on
MYHIPHOP.ORG the 11th of November NYMAG.COM/SELECTALL
The first debunk has been
SERVING SUGGESTIONS
Daily Media Buzz New York Magazine published by nymag.com
Select All
on the 30th of December
Banda Bassotti
The Craziest fight videos
THEVERGE.COM
TechKnowledgeIt
THUGIFY.COM verge
DAILYNEWSPOSTS.INFO
BUZZFEED.COM
DONALD TRUMP
COMMANDER IN CHIEF !!!!
ROCK Mundial
Trump USA's CEO Isaac Saul
StyleHaul
TrumpNation The European Journalism Observatory | EJO
FAKE STORY INSTANCES BuzzFeed
VOTE TRUMP ONLY - THE AMERICAN PARTY RISING Coloradans For Bernie
Reposted Version
Radioactivo 98.5
PAKISTAN RISING
POLITICO.COM
FU Trump
DO FACT-CHECKING
INITIATIVES REACH THE
query
Fake News Title 1 + Fake
Fake News Title 2 + Fake
. . . in
ON FACEBOOK?
Retain the top ranked URL
of a debunk per fake news story
...
BEFORE STARTING
This recipe takes as a starting point a list of input URLs in
fake news stories. There are different ways CrowdTangle
of obtaining these lists including starting
with existing lists as well as creating your
own. To illustrate this recipe we use an
output data
already existing list of 22 fake news stories > URLs of fake news story
or debunked version thereof
about various political issues pertaining to > Facebook pages and groups
the 2016 presidential elections in the US that that share either the fake
news story or its correction
generated most engagement on Facebook. > number of followers
per page or group
These were identified by BuzzFeed News.
input data to
There are two steps to this recipe. The first
is to identify URLs that circulate corrections RAWGraphs
or debunking web pages for each fake
news story. The second is to explore how
Facebook groups engage with both fake news visualise ARE DEBUNKED VERSIONS
stories and their corresponding debunking OF FAKE NEWS STORIES
web pages (b). ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE
PUBLICS OF FAKE NEWS?
50 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 1: MAPPING FAKE NEWS HOTSPOTS
ON FACEBOOK 51
START
query
Fake News Title 1 + Fake CHAPTER 1 RECIPE 3
Fake News Title 2 + Fake
. . . in
a. IDENTIFY WEB PAGES WHICH AIM TO
Google Web Search DEBUNK FAKE NEWS STORIES
To identify prominent debunking web pages
for a given fake news story you may use the
Retain the top ranked URL
of a debunk per fake news story Google Web Search engine. Alternatively,
you may also query fact-checking sites for
...
keywords describing a fake news story.
In order to find corrections of fake news
articles queries need to be designed for
each fake news item in your list. One
strategy would be to use the title of the
story in quotation marks followed by the
word fake (e.g. Trump Offering Free
One-Way Tickets to Africa & Mexico for
Those Who Wanna Leave America, fake).
You may use the search engine ranking
as an indication of salience of correction
and select the highest ranked URLs
corresponding to a corrected version of the
fake news story in question.
The result of this step is a list of URLs
containing the most highly ranked
debunking web pages per fake news story.
query
Fake News Title 1 + Fake CHAPTER 1 RECIPE 3
Fake News Title 2 + Fake
. . . in
b. MAP THE OVERLAP BETWEEN THE
Google Web Search PUBLICS OF FAKE NEWS STORIES AND
WEB PAGES WHICH AIM TO DEBUNK
THEM
Retain the top ranked URL
of a debunk per fake news story
Facebook pages and groups that share both fake
news stories as well as web pages which aim to
... debunk them may be detected through a social
media monitoring tool such as CrowdTangles
browser extension.
merge all URLs in a single list
To explore whether the debunking web
+
pages are acknowledged by the publics
which share the fake news stories, identify
input URLs in
whether there is an overlap between the
Facebook pages and groups that share fake
CrowdTangle
news stories and those debunking web
pages issued in responses.
This may be illustrated by means of a
output data
> URLs of fake news story circle packing visualisation. You may use
or debunked version thereof
> Facebook pages and groups RawGraph for this operation.
that share either the fake
news story or its correction
> number of followers
per page or group
input data to
RAWGraphs
ACKNOWLEDGED
on www.politicops.com on www.burrardstreetjournal.com on www.tmzhiphop.com
BY THE PUBLICS OF
FAKE NEWS?
Obama passed law for grandparents
to get all their grandchildren
every weekend
Pubished the 8th of March 2016
Fake news pages and debunking on www.react365.com
Obama Signs Executive Order Pope Francis Shocks World, Pope Francis Shocks World, Obama Signs Executive Order Donald Trump Protester
Fake Declaring Investigation Into Election Endorses Hillary Clinton for Endorses Donald Trump for Banning The Pledge Of Allegiance Speaks Out: I Was Paid $3,500
Results; Revote Planned For Dec. 19th President, Releases Statement President, Releases Statement In Schools Nationwide To Protest Trump's Rally
Debunk Pubished the 12th of December 2016 Pubished the 25th of July 2016 Pubished the 26th of September 2016 Pubished the 11th of December 2016 Pubished the 22th of November 2016
on www.abcnews.com.co on www.kypo6.com on Ending The Fed on www.abcnews.com.co on www.abcnews.com.co
Hillary Clinton
POST INTERACTIONS Criminalize
for President in 2016
Conservatism
1.3.A
TRACING THE
Rage Against the Machine To Reunite
And Release Anti Donald Trump Album
Pubished the 11th of March 2016
Actor Bill Murray Announces
2016 Presidential Run
Pubished the 3th of October 2016
Mike Pence: Sarah Palin Is
My Role Model For Beautiful,
Smart American Women
President Obama Confirms
He Will Refuse To Leave Office
If Trump Is Elected
Trump Offering Free One-Way
Tickets to Africa; Mexico for Those
Who Wanna Leave America
CIRCULATION OF FAKE
NEWS ON THE WEB
on heaviermetal.net on www.abcnews.com.co Pubished the 18th of September 2016 Pubished the 7th of September 2016 Pubished the 11th of November 2016
on www.politicops.com on www.burrardstreetjournal.com on www.tmzhiphop.com
CHAPTER 1 RECIPE 3
Obama passed law for grandparents
to get all their grandchildren
every weekend
Pubished the 8th of March 2016
on www.react365.com
Rupaul claims Trump touched African Billionaire Will Give $1 BREAKING Romanian Hacker ISIS Leader Calls for American WHOA! Hillary Caught On
him inappropriately in the 1990s Million To Anyone Who Wants With Access To Clinton Emails Muslim Voters to Support Hot Mic Trashing Beyonce
Pubished the 14th of October 2016 To Leave America if Donald Trump Found Dead In Jail Cell Hillary Clinton With RACIAL SLURS!
on worldnewsdailyreport.com is Elected President Pubished the 6th of July 2016 Pubished the 11th of October 2016 Pubished the 5th of November 2016
Pubished the 3th of November 2016 on Christian Times on worldnewsdailyreport.com on www.thelastlineofdefense.org
on www.empireherald.com
Bestwebtools
Anonymous Portugal
Internacional
D.L. Hughley
SERVING SUGGESTIONS
This recipe may be used as
one way to assess the impact
of attempts to debunk fake
news by examining whether
debunking responses to fake
news are acknowledged on
the platform that generates
most engagement with fake
news, Facebook, and by the
particular publics which share
and engage with fake news.
58 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 59
Introduction - Fake news are not just false contribute to making them even more visible
news. They are interesting not so much on the web. A better understanding of how fake
because their content or form are different news travels online can help to inform responses
from that of authentic news, but because they that are more attuned to the phenomena. From
travel as much as (and sometimes more than) a methodological point of view, as there is
mainstream news. If a blog claims that Pope no ontological difference between fake and
Francis endorses Donald Trump, it's just a lie. If authentic news, studying fake news circulation
the story is picked up by dozens of other blogs, can help us understand more about how other
retransmitted by hundreds of websites, cross- kinds of news travels.
posted over thousands of social media accounts This recipe comes in two flavours. Firstly,
and read by hundreds of thousands, then it we propose a manual variant which can be
becomes fake news. executed without the need for any particular tool
The following recipes investigate the or technical knowledge. This variant is easy to
circulation of fake news for two reasons. Firstly, execute but also time consuming. It is based on
from a political point of view many have a search for web pages referring to fake news
expressed disappointment that techniques and stories and on the manual identification of the
tactics commonly used to tackle fake news have dates of their publication and the sources that
not lived up to expectations. Fact-checking and they cite. Secondly, we propose a semi-automated
debunking, in particular, often do not succeed version which allows this approach to be scaled
in preventing the circulation of hoaxes and to more pages, but demands more technical skills
rumors. On the contrary: they can inadvertently and may require more manual verification.
60 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 61
START
open Chrome browser
in incognito mode
CHAPTER 2 RECIPE 1
query
FIRST RETRANSMITTED?
> The page advocating
or debunking the fake
news item
> Rank in the search
engine results
> the date of publication
of each of the page
visualise
Table2Net Gephi
TRUMP STORY CITES
EACH OTHER?
visualise
ACCORDING TO PAGES
IN SEARCH ENGINE
RESULTS?
62 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 63
START
open Chrome browser
in incognito mode
CHAPTER 2 RECIPE 1
64 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 65
START
open Chrome browser
in incognito mode
query
[ Pope AND endors* AND (Trump OR Clinton)
AND NOT (hoax OR fake news OR lie OR debunk) ]
66 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 67
HOW DO THE europe.newsweek.com/fake-...
OCCURRENCES OF rednationrising
complex
endingthefed
Network of cross-references between commonwealmagazine.org/bl...
the pages mentioning the Pope southendnewsnetwork.com/n...
Endorses Trump story. In the image
the nodes represent the different pages thebassbarn.com/forum/12-...
godlikeproductions.com/fo...
on which the fake story appears. The cnbc.com/2016/12/30/read-...
comparison of the colour of the nodes msn
heavy.com/news/2016/11/fa...
(which indicates whether the page cites uk.businessinsider.com/fa...
nymag.com/selectall/2016/... groups.google.com/forum/#...
or debunks the story) and their size quora
theguardian.com/commentis... buzzfeed_partisan
(which indicates the number of citations
catholicnews
received by the page) reveals the greater enh latimes
visibility of the debunking and neutral nytimes.com/2016/11/13/op...
raptureforums.com/forums/... foxnews.com/world/2016/12...
pages compared to websites that spread snopes
linkedin.com/pulse/pope-f...
the fake story as authentic earnthenecklace.com/fact-...
nytimes.com/2016/11/13/op...
gvnews.com/opinion/factch...
niemanlab.org/2016/11/the...
wtoe5 dinarvets.com/forums/inde... guardian
morningnewsusa.com/pope-f... erumors
theglobeandmail.com/news/...
justplainpolitics.com/sho...
newsbreakshere.com/pope-f...
buzzfeed_strangest vox.com/new-money/2016/11...
sconews.co.uk/news/52118/...
newstatesman.com/world/20...
independent.co.uk/news/pe...
thejournal.ie/fake-news-f... hoaxslayer truthorfiction.com/pope-f... buzzfeed_macedonia
hackinghumanity.com/uncat...
wp
buzzfeed dailydot.com/unclick/face...
NUMBER OF MENTIONS thatsfake.com/pope-franci...
1 18
reuters.com/article/us-us...
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...
slate.com/blogs/future_te...
wtoe5_about
cathola.com/2017/02/19/po...
factcheck.org/2016/10/did... guardian_pope
apnews.com/86073aedf0c245...
wgal.com/article/did-the-...
Fake News
cbsnews.com/news/pope-fra...
buzzfeed_viralfake
wgal
Debunk
msn.com/en-us/news/crime/... thedailybeast.com/article...
bigstory.ap.org/article/5...
Neutral
kypo6
youtube.com/watch?v=8pzfw...
68 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 69
START
open Chrome browser
in incognito mode
query
[ Pope AND endors* AND (Trump OR Clinton)
AND NOT (hoax OR fake news OR lie OR debunk) ]
Table2Net Gephi
TRUMP STORY CITES
EACH OTHER?
ACCORDING TO PAGES
IN SEARCH ENGINE
RESULTS?
70 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 71
WHAT IS THE LIFE OF
THE POPE ENDORSES
TRUMP STORY
Buzzfeed Thejournal
Theguardian Vox
ACCORDING TO PAGES
Truthorfiction Dinarvets
Godlikeproductions
Washingtonpost Truthorfiction
RESULTS?
Commonwealmagazine Earnthenecklace
Wtoe5news Justplainpolitics
Newsbreakshere
Thebassbarn
Snopes
Chronological network of the cross- Nymag
Niemanlab
references between the pages Nytimes
Nytimes
mentioning the Pope Endorses Uk
Morningnewsusa
Trump story. In this image it is not Theguardian
Factcheck
Slate
GOOGLE RANK
WITHOUT DATE JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER JANUARY FEBRUARY
1 100
2016 2017
72 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 73
mercurynews.com/2016/12/1...
endingthefed
commonwealmagazine.org/bl...
southendnewsnetwork.com/n...
/12-...
godlikeproductions.com/fo...
nbc.com/2016/12/30/read-...
heavy.com/news/2016/11/fa...
msn
insider.com/fa...
groups.google.com/forum/#...
quora
buzzfeed_partisan
catholicnews CHAPTER 2 RECIPE 1
latimes
foxnews.com/world/2016/12...
Buzzfeed
linkedin.com/pulse/pope-f... Thejournal
SERVING SUGGESTIONS
Theguardian Vox
nthenecklace.com/fact-...
This recipe may be used to repurpose data
Truthorfiction Dinarvets
Godlikeproductions
Washingtonpost Truthorfiction
dinarvets.com/forums/inde...
Justplainpolitics
guardian
order to identify and follow the different
Wtoe5news Newsbreakshere
Thebassbarn
/pope-f... erumors
Snopes
Nymag
stplainpolitics.com/sho...
Nytimes
Nytimes
newsbreakshere.com/pope-f... Uk
est vox.com/new-money/2016/11...
Hoax-slayer Buzzfeed Hackinghumanity
hoaxslayer
Trend
truthorfiction.com/pope-f...
Reddit
Endingthefed
buzzfeed_macedonia
Twitter Europe
to see when the debunking activities took
place, who promoted them and what effect
Quora
wp
Latimes
dailydot.com/unclick/face...
Wgal
thatsfake.com/pope-franci...
Buzzfeed
Msn
Heavy
this had on the circulation of fake news
Factcheck stories and web pages.
Slate
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...
Buzzfeed Dailydot
Complex Uk
Buzzfeed Bigstory
No sharing of the story URL from March to July
Nbcnews
cathola.com/2017/02/19/po... Apnews
guardian_pope
Foxnews
Theglobeandmail
Cbsnews
Southendnewsnetwork
com/article/did-the-... Mercurynews
Reuters
buzzfeed_viralfake
wgal
Theguardian Cathola
/en-us/news/crime/... thedailybeast.com/article...
bigstory.ap.org/article/5...
WITHOUT DATE JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER JANUARY FEBRUARY
o6 2016 2017
youtube.com/watch?v=8pzfw...
74 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 75
START
CHAPTER 2 RECIPE 2
websites collected
b on the basemap
A list of all the possible web sources in
which your chosen fake news story may WHICH ARE THE visualise
a
have appeared (we used the list curated by SOURCES CITED IN THE
OCCURRENCES OF THE WHAT ARE THE
Le Monde Dcodex). produce time-sliced
FAKE NEWS STORY? networks using MAIN SPHERES
Graph Recipes IN THE FRENCH
c
MEDIA SYSTEM?
HOW MANY OCCURRENCES
OF THE FAKE NEWS ARE visualise
a
WHAT ARE THE
MAIN SPHERES
IN THE FRENCH
MEDIA SYSTEM?
78 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 79
WHAT ARE THE MAIN
SPHERES IN THE FRENCH
MEDIA SYSTEM?
Network analysis of the media
sources active in French public SOCIAL MEDIA AND OTHERS
debate. The image shows the news GROUPE CENTRE-FRANCE
La Rpublique du Centre
sources listed by the Dcodex project L'Yonne rpublicaine
SATIRICAL WEBSITES
by Le Monde and the hyperlinks Snapchat
Le Figaro Slate
BFMTV L'Express Lablogalupus
Le Monde alalumieredunouveaumonde
Egalit et Rconciliation
Provider
CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS MAINSTREAM FRENCH MEDIA
80 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 81
CHAPTER 2 RECIPE 2
START
b. HIGHLIGHT THE OCCURRENCES OF YOUR
STORY ON THE BASE MAP
In this step we will explore how fake news stories
find a query identifying
your fake news story are associated with different sources. This is
interesting, as while a fake news story might
for example start out its life as a piece of satire,
identify the occurrences compile a list of potential sources
of your story in
websites collected
as it travels it can become more prominently
Radarly
and curated associated with non-satirical sources. Here we
by the project
Dcodex by Le Monde will identify which of the sources in the base map
of the French media system are mentioned in the
export all data
pages in which your fake news story occurs.
> Full text of each crawl the websites with
occurrence Create a query that identifies the fake news
> Date of publication Hyphe story that you want to trace. Use keywords
> Metadata
specifically associated with your story and
the stop-words to exclude "false positives".
search mentions export a graph file
of potential sources
in the instances of your story it represents Identify the occurrences of your story,
the general
running your query on the archive that
Csv Rinse Repeat connectivity
among potential
sources
you have chosen to use. For each of the
results, collect the full text and the date of
publication.
export a graph file
create a basemap Detect mentions of the sources of your base
network with
map, searching for the URLs as well as for
Gephi
the names of your sources (e.g. sputniknews.
com, Sputnik). In our example we used a
custom script for CSV Rinse Repeat.
Project the instances
of your story Project the occurrences of your story onto
b on the basemap
your base map, by merging them with the
WHICH ARE THE visualise source network and connecting each of them
SOURCES CITED IN THE to the sources that they mention. While
OCCURRENCES OF THE keeping the source-nodes fixed, apply a force
FAKE NEWS STORY? directed spatialisation algorithm (you can
do this using Gephi) to move the nodes
representing the fake story occurrences
closer to clusters of the base map that they
cite the most.
82 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 83
WHICH ARE THE
SOURCES CITED IN THE
OCCURRENCES OF THE
FAKE NEWS STORY?
Projection of the fake news
occurrences on the network of media La Rpublique du Centre
L'Yonne rpublicaine
sources. In this image, the occurrences Snapchat
of the fake news story are positioned on
the base map displayed by the previous
network according to the sources they Wikihow
Le Figaro Slate
BFMTV L'Express Lablogalupus
Le Monde alalumieredunouveaumonde
Provider
Egalit et Rconciliation
NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS
84 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 85
START
produce time-sliced
networks using
Graph Recipes
c
HOW MANY OCCURRENCES
OF THE FAKE NEWS ARE visualise
THEY CITE?
Temporal evolution of the fake news
story in the whole observed period.
In this image, the occurrences of the
fake news story are divided in slices of
4 weeks (with an overlap of two weeks)
and represented as a density heat map
rather than as individual points. Though
mentions of the story have been present
for more than one year, its circulation
appears to spike up in February 2017, 6 JUN 2016 - 4 JUL 2016 20 JUN 2016 - 18 JUL 2016 4 JUL 2016 - 1 AUG 2016 18 JUL 2016 - 15 AUG 2016 1 AUG 2016 - 29 JUL 2016 15 AUG 2017 - 12 SEP 2016
BASEMAP
Social Media
and Others
29 AUG 2016- 26 SEP 2016 12 SEP 2016 - 10 OCT 2016 26 SEP 2016 - 24 OCT 2016 10 OCT 2016 - 7 NOV 2017 24 OCT 2017 - 21 NOV 2017 7 NOV 2016 - 5 MAY 2016
Local Media International
Media
Extreme
Right Media Conspiracy
Theorists
Mainstream
French Media
21 NOV 2017 - 19 DEC 2016 5 DEC 2016 - 2 JAN 2017 19 DEC 2016 - 16 JAN 2017 2 JAN 2017 - 30 JAN 2017 16 JAN 2017 - 13 FEB 2017 30 JAN 2017 - 27 FEB 2017
88 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 89
HOW MANY
OCCURRENCES OF THE
FAKE NEWS STORY
ARE PUBLISHED IN
FEBRUARY 2017 AND
WHAT SOURCES DO 14 MAR 2016 - 11 APR 2016 28 MAR 2016 - 25 APR 2016 11 APR 2016 - 9 MAY 2016 25 APR 2016 - 23 MAY 2016 9 MAY 2016 - 6 JUN 2016 23 MAY 2016 - 20 JUN 2016
THEY CITE? 1 FEB 2017 - 5 FEB 2017 3 FEB 2017 - 7 FEB 2017 5 FEB 2017 - 9 FEB 2017 7 FEB 2017 - 11 FEB 2017 9 FEB 2017 - 13 FEB 2017
Temporal evolution of the fake
news story in the February 2017.
This image represents a temporal
zoom of the previous one. Here the
occurrences of the fake news story
are break up in slices of 4 days (with
an overlap of two days).
6 JUN 2016 - 4 JUL 2016 20 JUN 2016 - 18 JUL 2016 4 JUL 2016 - 1 AUG 2016 18 JUL 2016 - 15 AUG 2016 1 AUG 2016 - 29 JUL 2016 15 AUG 2017 - 12 SEP 2016
11 FEB 2017 - 15 FEB 2017 13 FEB 2017 - 17 FEB 2017 15 FEB 2017 -19 FEB 2017 17 FEB 2017 - 21 FEB 2017 19 FEB 2017 - 23 FEB 2017
BASEMAP
Social Media
and Others
29 AUG 2016- 26 SEP 2016 12 SEP 2016 - 10 OCT 2016 26 SEP 2016 - 24 OCT 2016 10 OCT 2016 - 7 NOV 2017 24 OCT 2017 - 21 NOV 2017 7 NOV 2016 - 5 MAY 2016
Local Media International
Media
Extreme
Right Media Conspiracy
Theorists
Mainstream
French Media
21 FEB 2017 - 25 FEB 2017 23 FEB 2017 - 27 FEB 2017 25 FEB 2017 - 1 MAR 2017 27 FEB 2017 - 3 MAR 2017
Fake news density
21 NOV 2017 - 19 DEC 2016 5 DEC 2016 - 2 JAN 2017 19 DEC 2016 - 16 JAN 2017 2 JAN 2017 - 30 JAN 2017 16 JAN 2017 - 13 FEB 2017 30 JAN 2017 - 27 FEB 2017
90 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 2: TRACING THE CIRCULATION OF FAKE NEWS ON THE WEB 91
Chapter #3
COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS
CHAPTER 2 RECIPE 2
Wikihow
GOSSIP MEDIA
Wikihow
Instagram
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Franceinfo Le6emetiroir
Libration
12 SEP 2016 - 10 OCT 2016 26 SEP 2016 - 24 OCT 2016 10 OCT 2016 - 7 NOV 2017
Huffington Post 24 OCT 2017 - 21 NOV 2017 7 NOV 2016 - 5 MAY 2016
How do tracker ecologies on fake
Le Parisien-Aujourdhui en France Le6emetiroir
Reopen911 Rvolution Vibratoire
Le Point
Huffington Post Les Crises
EXTREME-RIGHT MEDIAen France
Le Parisien-Aujourdhui Arrt sur images
Reopen911 Rvolution Vibratoire
Le Point
Novopress
identifyEgalit
which websites appear
et Rconciliation
Egalit et Rconciliation
Which other websites share
most often when a fake news
story is mentioned in different
the same tracker ids as fake
settings. These are not necessarily CONSPIRACY THEORISTS news sites?
MAINSTREAM FRENCH MEDIA
the original sources of the fake
news, but are often the most Do trackers associated with
influential media outlets that
hyper-partisan and misinformation
contribute to its circulation
5 DEC 2016 - 2 JAN 2017 19 DEC (whether
2016 - 16 JANas2017 a rumour 2orJAN
as2017
a - 30 JAN 2017 16 JAN 2017 - 13 FEB 2017 30 JAN 2017 - 27sites
FEB 2017vary across language
92 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 93
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 1
96 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 97
DO MAINSTREAM MEDIA
AND FAKE NEWS WEBSITES
SHARE THE SAME TRACKER
ECOLOGIES?
Scatterplot representing tracker
usage on a series of fake news and
mainstream media sites. While fake
news sites and mainstream media
sites share popular tracker services DoubleClick
250
Facebook Connect
Tracker Popularity
200
Google Publisher Tags Google Syndication
Aggregate Knowledge BlueKai
AppNexus
DoubleClick
LiveRamp Quantcast Ad Exchange-Seller
150
Rubicon
ChartBeat TradeDesk
eXelate Twitter Button
Datalogix
OwnerIQ ShareThis
TRACKER CATEGORY
Disqus
Ad Acxiom Zypmedia
Analytics
20 40 60 80
MAINSTREAM
FAKE NEWS
Widget
100%
100%
98 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 99
Google Analytics
Google Adsense
250
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 2
Facebook Connect
Tracker Popularity
200
AppNexus
150
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 1
LiveRamp Quantcast AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA SITES DoubleClick
Ad Exchange-Seller
BE PROFILED BASED ON
Rubicon
ChartBeat TradeDesk
eXelate Twitter Button
OwnerIQ ShareThis
RY
Disqus
Acxiom Zypmedia
20 40 60
BEFORE STARTING
80
MAINSTREAM
FAKE NEWS
For this recipe you will need two lists of
This recipe can be used to profile URLs: one list of fake news URLs and one list
100%
100%
the tracking practices associated of mainstream media URLs. How these lists
with different kinds of websites are obtained is a crucial part of the research
including which trackers are either process. You can either draw on existing lists, or
mainly or exclusively associated create your own (e.g. by compiling a selection,
with fake news websites and what triangulating from other sources, or obtaining
these trackers do as well as from different platforms or media sources). The
identifying most commonly used starting point that you choose will affect how to
trackers. It can also be used for read and what you can do with the results. To
exploring the long tail of smaller illustrate this recipe, we start with a selection
and more specialised trackers. of fake news pages obtained from a list created
by BuzzFeed News (ordered by most engaged
with content according to the BuzzSumo tool),
as well as a list of mainstream media web pages
obtained by triangulating lists from BuzzFeed
News and Alexa.
100 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 101
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 2
START
GRAPH RELATIONS BETWEEN PAGES
obtain seed lists
of fake news URLs AND TRACKERS
In order to explore how different URLs share
the same patterns of tracker usage we can
create a network graph to highlight associations
between web pages to their corresponding
input URLs in
trackers.
DMI Tracker Tracker
Extract lists of trackers associated with the
initial lists of fake news and mainstream
output data to
media pages. You may use the DMI
> Extract list of trackers Tracker Tracker tool to collect this
associated with web pages
on each list information.
Create a network in order to show the
tracker usage patterns of the different
import data in
web pages. We used Gephi in order to
visually explore the network using a force
Gephi
directed network layout to help read the
data.
visualise You can annotate the network graph in
order to highlight the cluster of URLs
(e.g. fake news clusters, or mainstream
HOW DO FAKE NEWS SITES media clusters).
AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA
CLUSTER ACCORDING THEIR
TRACKER USAGE?
102 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 103
HOW DO FAKE NEWS
SITES AND MAINSTREAM
MEDIA CLUSTER
ACCORDING THEIR empirenews.net +
news4ktla.com +
straightstoned.com
TRACKER USAGE?
Bipartite network of trackers and
websites that use them. Shared tracker
abcnews.com.co
signatures may be used to explore newsexaminer.net
tracker practices or strategies amongst
a set of websites or to detect fake news
media groups. nationalreport.net
newslo.com
newsbiscuit.com
en.mediamass.net
thevalleyreport.com
thenewsnerd.com newshub.info
satiratribune.com
celebtricity.com
empireherald.com
ncscooper.com burradstreetjournal.com
notallowedto.com
baltimoregazzette.com
dailyfinesser.com
huzlers.com
realnewsrightnow.com
wm21news.com
stuppid.com
kata33. om
NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS
Tracker
104 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 105
news4ktla.com +
straightstoned.com
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 3
abcnews.com.co
newsexaminer.net
nationalreport.net
HOW DO TRACKER ECOLOGIES
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 2
newslo.com ON FAKE NEWS SITES
CHANGE OVER TIME??
newsbiscuit.com
en.mediamass.net
thevalleyreport.com
thenewsnerd.com newshub.info
satiratribune.com
celebtricity.com
empireherald.com
ncscooper.com burradstreetjournal.com
notallowedto.com
baltimoregazzette.com
dailyfinesser.com
huzlers.com
106 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 107
START
obtain seed lists
of fake news URLs
input URLs in
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 3
The Wayback Machine
GRAPH RELATIONS BETWEEN PAGES
AND TRACKERS
obtain past versions This recipe can be used to identify which
of the pages
trackers were being used by a given web page
merge all URLs in a single list
at different moments in time. It might be useful
+
to chart changes in tracking practices for
example by examining the impact and responses
to events like Google and Facebooks bans of
fake news providers from their ads programs in
input URLs in
November 2016.
DMI Tracker Tracker
Obtain archived copies of a webpage. You
may use The Wayback Machine to see
how a given page changed over time.
output data to
> Extract list of trackers Identify associated trackers with the
associated with web pages
on each list current and previous version of the page.
You may use the DMI Tracker Tracker
tool to collect such information.
Identify the trackers which are only present
import data in
on the first date, the ones that which are
Gephi only present on the second date and the
ones that are shared across both dates.
You can group trackers into three lists,
visualise
colouring them accordingly.
108 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 109
HOW DO FAKE NEWS SITES Doubleclick
ADAPT THEIR TRACKER Google Analytics
USAGE IN RESPONSE TO Google Adsense
Doubleclick Ad Exchange-seller
BLACKLISTING FROM Google Syndication
MAJOR AD NETWORKS? Scorecard Research Beacon
Gravatar
Tracker ecologies on fake news sites Wordpress Stats
before and after blacklisting from Facebook Connect
major ad networks. While ad networks Exelate
from which fake news sites have been Disqus
Brightroll
blacklisted remain in the source code Adobe Audience Manager
of these sites and hence are present Bluekai
Amazon Associates
in the graphic even after the moment Appnexus
of blacklisting, the visualisation also Bidswitch
Criteo
illustrates new ad networks that fake Mediamath
news sites have moved to. A manual Openx
Pubmatic
review of ad services used to serve ads Tradedesk
on the website interface may help to Facebook Social Plugins
Taboola
further refine this analysis and identify Twitter Button
false positives (i.e. tracker services that Adtech
Advertising.com
are no longer in use but whose code Index Exchange (Formerly Casale Media)
remains embedded in these sites). Pulsepoint
Quantcast
Rubicon
Spoutable
Stickyads
Tapad
Adform
Teads Infectious Media
Turn Inc. Yahoo Ad Manager Plus
Yahoo Ad Exchange Adap.tv
Tubemogul Adroll
Krux Digital Bidswitch
Liveramp Crimtan
Datalogix
Acloudimages
Dataxu
Acuity Ads
Digilant
TRACKER POPULARITY Adscale
Dstillery
Eyeview Getintent
TRACKER Revcontent
Smart Adserver
Improve Digital
Infolinks
Sovrn (Formerly Lijit Networks) Internet Billboard
TRACKER Twitter Advertising Smaato
Zypmedia Smartclip
TRACKER At Internet Spotxchange
Twitter Analytics Switch Concepts
Aggregate Knowledge Yieldlab
TRACKER CATEGORY Lotame Kxcdn
Admarvel Owneriq Beeswax
Clicksor Bidtheatre
Rocket Fuel
Ad Drawbridge
Videology
Chango
Facebook Custom Audience Dotomi
Addthis
Google Publisher Tags Kixer
Gumgum
Facebook Social Graph Mythings
Analytics
Media.net Lockerz Share Netmining
Sekindo Pinterest Pagefair
Doubleverify Sharethis Radiumone
Tracker
Visible Measures Twitter Badge Sumome
Omniture (Adobe Analytics) Typekit By Adobe Tumblr Dashboard
Widget
TRACKERS PRESENT TRACKERS TRACKERS PRESENT
ONLY BEFORE DECEMBER ALWAYS PRESENT ONLY AFTER JANUARY
110 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS CHAPTER 3: USING TRACKER SIGNATURES TO MAP THE TECHNO-COMMERCIAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAKE NEWS SITES 111
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 4
WHICH OTHER
Doubleclick
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 3
WEBSITES SHARE
Google Analytics THE SAME TRACKER IDS
Google Adsense AS FAKE NEWS SITES?
Doubleclick Ad Exchange-seller
Google Syndication
Scorecard Research Beacon
Gravatar
Wordpress Stats
SERVING SUGGESTIONS BEFORE STARTING
Facebook
Given debates Connect
and proposals Before you start you will need to compile
Exelate
about stopping the ad revenue or identify seed lists of fake news or other
of fake news, this recipe may be misinformation websites. We illustrate this
Disqus
used to understand how fake recipe by examining which websites use the
Brightroll
news websites are adapting to same Google Analytics IDs as a list of websites
Adobe Audience
the measures takenManager
by trackers from the EU Disinformation Review.
Bluekai
services, technology companies
and advertisers
Amazon as well as how
Associates
effective these measures are.
Appnexus
For example, it can show which
Bidswitch
trackers have been dropped, which
Criteo
remain and which are added at
Mediamath
different moments in time.
Openx
Pubmatic
Tradedesk
Facebook Social Plugins
Taboola
112
Twitter Button A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS WHICH OTHER WEBSITES SHARE THE SAME TRACKER IDS AS FAKE NEWS PAGES? 113
Adtech
START
obtain seed lists
of fake news URLs
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 4
DETECTED THROUGH
SHARED GOOGLE
ANALYTICS IDS?
A selection of websites which share
Media group Lone Themed network Canadian socialism Themed network
the same Google Analytics IDs, based
(Russia Today) Webmaster (Navy, Airforce) and unions (Mysticism, Liberland)
on seed list from EU Disinformation
Review. This illustrates the diversity of
online settings where claims labelled
as Russian disinformation are shared
from large media groups such as
Russia Today, to themed clusters (e.g.
military or mysticism), and geographical
clusters (e.g. Canadian). One can also assange.rt.com asco.gr armedforcesjournal.com oakvillendp.ca grand-mystical-lodge.com
identify distinctive visual styles and
possible shared CMS features amongst
different websites in these clusters,
which may be used as the basis for
further investigations into the media,
publication and communication
strategies of websites associated with doc.rt.com royalparadise.gr sightlinemediagroup.com socialiststudies.com malachim.cz
online misinformation.
116 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS WHICH OTHER WEBSITES SHARE THE SAME TRACKER IDS AS FAKE NEWS PAGES? 117
rt.com xryshaygh.com defensenews.com newcoldwar.org almanach.cz
19 disinformation stories 1 disinformation story 1 disinformation story 7 disinformation stories 3 disinformation stories
UA-5773642 UA-4839940 UA-841082 UA-15942468 UA-3004323
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 5
DO TRACKERS
CHAPTER Lone
3 RECIPE 4
118 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS WHICH OTHER WEBSITES SHARE THE SAME TRACKER IDS AS FAKE NEWS PAGES? 119
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 5
visualise
DO MISINFORMATION AND
HYPER-PARTISAN WEBSITES
IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGE
SPHERES HAVE DISTINCT
TRACKER ECOLOGIES?
120 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS WHICH OTHER WEBSITES SHARE THE SAME TRACKER IDS AS FAKE NEWS PAGES? 121
DO MISINFORMATION veeseo
Mark & Mini
AND HYPER-PARTISAN Ligatus
Atlas
TRACKER POPULARITY
1 78
TRACKER CATEGORY
INFOnline
Plista
Ad Piwik
Tynt
adNET de
Analytics
VKontakte Widgets
AMP Platform
Tracker M P NewMedia
GERMAN
Widget
122 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS WHICH OTHER WEBSITES SHARE THE SAME TRACKER IDS AS FAKE NEWS PAGES? 123
CHAPTER 3 RECIPE 5
SERVING SUGGESTIONS
This recipe can be used to
identify trackers for further
investigation including
language sphere specific and
cross-language trackers. It
may help to provide lines
ts
of inquiry for looking into
what is distinctive about the
commercial and technical
underpinnings of fake news in
different language spheres.
124 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS WHICH OTHER WEBSITES SHARE THE SAME TRACKER IDS AS FAKE NEWS PAGES? 125
126 A FIELD GUIDE TO FAKE NEWS