I personally hate hoax sites, not so much those who admit they are satirical, but those who misinform and spread false information as if they were true . There has been a proliferation of these sites in recent times that seem to all intents and purposes journalistic, but that in reality do nothing but copy news of "current" to validate their ideologies, take old news by changing the title to make them look sensational and new and that, in some cases, even publish invented stories of a healthy plant.
Almost always these are sites of false information or disinformation, which are described with slogans such as " what the regime media don't say " or " against any censorship ".
The arguments of the hoax sites are above all politics, with often extremist positions against immigrants, to defend Christianity, with often news against Muslims and with conspiracy theories argued with little verifiable evidence, regarding science topics (e.g. chemtrails) and medicine (e.g. vaccines).
In general, recognizing fake news is rather simple: it is enough to check if there is a reliable source for the news, if the attached image or video is true and if other official media outlets report the same news.
Without having to do who knows what verification, just search Google for the title to see if there is any reliable source about it or if it has already been reported as a hoax.
Very often the titles of the hoaxes have words like: " Shock: ... " or " nobody tells you .... share it ", or even " sensational .... ",
Unfortunately, one of the biggest Facebook problems is that many people share news without reading it, if it matches what they think.
For example, those who have political ideas against immigration can make the big mistake of publishing news invented by the various buffalo sites convinced that they are true and that the newspapers do not speak of it by censorship.
Why these sites come out like mushrooms and are spreading "> Espresso, like a blog that was written only to earn on false racist news.
Another type of hoax sites are those with obvious invented news, to make satire .
Among these, the most famous is in Italy is Lercio.it, which invents blatantly fake newspaper headlines, often also very funny and always without fueling political controversy.
It should also be noted that Lercio, in his description, clearly and honestly writes that he is a satire site.
Other sites similar to Lercio, which I personally do not follow, but who admit to being humorous, are:
- Corriere del morning (the site declares to publish invented news)
- Corriere del Corsaro (satire site)
- Orgone key (satire)
- Il Giomale (invented news site that plays a lot on the fact that on Facebook, when it is shared, the news seems to come from IlGiornale)
- AGENews (declared hoax site)
- Health 360 Degrees (satire)
- IoVivoaRoma (site of funny stuff and invented news)
- The Daily Fool (satirical but not blatantly)
- The evening newspaper (news aggregator without verification)
The worst sites are those of disinformation, which pretend to be serious newspapers, but which mix real news with hoaxes, plots and unverified stories.
A complete list, which lists this type of untrusted sites because they have published false news more than once, is on this page of the Butac.it site, specialized in discovering hoaxes on Italian sites.
Other searches can be made on bufale.net, which checks the most popular and shared news on Facebook to disprove them with all the relevant data.
Some might argue that even the most famous newspapers sometimes publish hoaxes or write sensational news headlines when there is nothing verified in the article.
This is certainly true and is a general and typical problem of information of all times, which in any case must "sell".
A person who wants to know the truth should always read the news from multiple sources, especially when it comes to politics, religion and health.
It is obvious that if a person reads only the PD Unit, Grillo's blog or Berlusconi's Il Giornale, he will never be able to have a critical thought on what is published and will be satisfied to read news in favor of his political orientation.
READ ALSO: Fake News: how to recognize them and avoid false news
