A new analysis from NewsGuard reveals that 91 siti included in its Coronavirus Disinformation Monitoring Center are now also spreading disinformation about the conflict in Ukraine, and for this they have been placed in its Disinformation Monitoring Center on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Of these 91 sites, more than half (57) are active on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
While the accounts of some of these sites have been suspended, of the 57 sites still active on social media, 43 are on Twitter, 41 on Facebook and 23 on YouTube (and many are active on more than one of the platforms). On the social accounts of these sites, there are no warnings from the platforms regarding the fact that the information shared comes from untrustworthy sources.
The complaint
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Additionally, some of these sites have seen their social media accounts suspended without a clear and transparent explanation from the platforms. Practices of this kind do not help users understand which sources of information they can trust.
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Among these sites, which operate globally, there are 31 sites in English, 31 in French, 16 in German and 13 in Italian.
The sites that are part of the NewsGuard Monitoring Centers have published false information, including at least one of the main hoaxes about Covid-19 or the conflict between Russia and Ukraine identified and denied by NewsGuard.
The three most followed sites on this list on social media (OANN.com, ZeroHedge.com e OrganicConsumer.org) overall have a following of 3 million followers on Twitter, 1.5 million followers on Facebook and 1.47 million subscribers on YouTube.
Here are some examples of false information shared by sites included by NewsGuard in Disinformation Monitoring Centers:
- The virus that causes Covid-19 contains “HIV-like inserts,” which suggests it was artificially produced.
- 5G cell phone technology is linked to the Coronavirus epidemic.
- The United States is developing biological weapons specially designed to target ethnic Russians.
- The massacre of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine was a staged one.
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Furthermore, of the 91 sites considered, 23 continue to receive revenue through programmatic advertising, hosted by advertising platforms such as Google and MGID.