Intro
There was a post made to the board today that garnered the attention of a few mods and which was subsequently removed for posting a dodgy sauce with dodgy assertions. (Thank you mods).
Someone suggested I check it out, so I did. After a glance at the article itself, whose headlines plus first few lines stunk to high heaven (sensationalism, over-the-top claims, appeal to known biases, favorite villain, etc), I went into dig mode and applied an approach that I have found to be very useful for digging up potentially bad or evil sources.
I present that approach here (Three Steps) for pedes to consider, as a case study into 'busting' potential disinfo or clickbait operations or operatives. I invite pedes to draw their own conclusions from the data (even though I also post my own).
Note 1: As the narrative war steps up, the best, first defense is developing our discernment skills and investigatory practices.
Note 2: The following is a cursory (meaning not thorough or detailed) study using a few easy-at-hand resources.
Subject: Article: https://slaynews.com/news/wef-pushes-ban-home-grown-food-fight-climate-change/
Step One
search for same text from other publications > attempt to find original source or verify that the article / text is original here. (tool: search engine, i.e. google, etc)
Method: take a section of the text, sentence, etc, and search in search engine
=
Almost identical text found published on "News Addicts" (N/A)
https://newsaddicts.com/wef-warns-home-grown-food-causes-climate-change-demands-ban/
Slay date: March 1, 2024 vs. N/A date: February 3, 2024
After finding other earlier source (and no other), run a comparison between them.
Step Two
verify or investigate authors > check avatars, names, etc. (Tools: search engine, pic recognition, google, tineye, etc)
=
Two-1: check profile
Slay author : Frank Bergman
https://slaynews.com/author/frank-bergman/
Frank Bergman is a political/economic journalist living on the east coast. Aside from news reporting, Bergman also conducts interviews with researchers and material experts and investigates influential individuals and organizations in the sociopolitical world.
NOTE: blurb, no concrete or verifiable details
Two-2: check identity avatar
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8cba3174a095e11a787c2b1268dc9916?s=100&d=mm&r=g
No other images on web for "Frank Bergman" with any journalist connection.... "writer" "slay" "author"
COMPARE
Two-1:
N/A author : Hunter Fielding
https://newsaddicts.com/author/hunterfielding/
NOTE: no blurb, zero information
Two-2:
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d0285a67d14cc3301b877cc335719bc1?s=100&d=mm&r=g
No other images on web for "Hunter Fielding" with any journalist connection, including "writer" "news addicts" "author"
DATA
*Both identities use https://gravatar.com/ for their avatar.
*Neither avatar appears anywhere else on the web (tools: lens.google.com/, tineye.com)
*Bergman has a very generic "blurb" for his profile in addition to stories he 'authored', no concrete information or data provided. In other words, he is anonymous. Fielding has no blurb at all for his profile, only stories he 'authored'. aka anonymous.
Step Three
Investigate publishing bodies, to see how transparent or otherwise they are, attention to verifiable information or data
Slay News
https://who.is/whois/slaynews.com
Registered 2021-10-30
Check registering provider using TUCOWS, INC. (http://tucowsdomains.com) >
Registration Service Provider: Fasthosts Internet Limited [email protected] +44.3330142700 http://www.Fasthosts.co.uk
Contact, admin : Great Britain, East Sussex.
Name Servers based in the UK : livedns.co.uk
Address on website: 63 Us Hwy #21 Jonesville, North Carolina(NC), 28642
Note: From memory, I have seen this address and location before, including street view, in digging into TPV, NewsPunch etc.
COMPARE
News Addicts
https://who.is/whois/newsaddicts.com
Check registering provider using TUCOWS, INC. (http://tucowsdomains.com) >
Registration Service Provider: Fasthosts Internet Limited [email protected] +44.3330142700 http://www.Fasthosts.co.uk
Contact, Admin : Great Britain, East Sussex
Address on Website: P.O. Box 20989 West Palm Beach Florida 33416
Tel: 561-686-1165
SEARCH Address:
belongs to Newsmax (Google)
https://www.newsmax.com/contact/
Newsmax Tel: 561-686-1165
Questions
Who uses anonymous avatars and profiles with zero concrete information or verifiable sources, but presents themselves as "journalists" writing articles on publications presenting themselves as legitimate sources of news?
Who copies texts from other 'authors' but presents it as their own, with little or zero modification, etc?
What publications paint themselves as "pro-american, patriotic, American values," describe themselves as "the world’s leading independent media source for political news junkies" (N/A) and "one of the nation’s fastest-growing alternative media companies" (Slay News), and are "designed for patriots" (N/A) and "promises to always prioritize its most valuable asset – our readers"?
Sauce:
https://slaynews.com/about-us/
https://newsaddicts.com/about-news-addicts/
What publications would provide a fake or false address and contact information in the US, while being based overseas (i.e. UK)?
Is there a pattern or are there patterns of activity/behavior similar or identical between these two 'sauces'? (hint: yes. Same avatar source, same IP provider, same or similar text, etc)
Also: we are anonymous here, but we do not present ourselves as anything other than anonymous. Who is anonymous but at the same time presents themselves as not anonymous? Why would they do that?
Wrap Up
Often, the first place to start myth-busting disinfo or clickbait operations is to check their details, looking for hints of legitimacy or otherwise. Aka the Sauce Check.
Often, even a cursory check can turn up red flags that make it easy to bring the information being published into doubt. Remember, the BEST disinfo always combines X amount (larger amount, normally) of truth with Y amount of disinfo.
Disinfo is most effectively delivered by wrapping it up in a bundle of seemingly legitimate information, in order to disguise the disinfo.
In addition, information that is presented while appealing to people's emotional biases (aka "We're patriots!) often seeks to circumvent otherwise critical thinking. Thus, a Content Analysis is also a very good option as a starting point.
For me, I think the data, re: these two publications, is pretty damning, to start with. So who do you think they are, and what do you think their motive is? To spread the truth? Or to do something else?
Think about it.
Comments
In the above, I have gone to looking at SAUCE as a first step, based on the red flags the headline and text raised for me straight up. However, another equally valid avenue of approach is to examine the text itself, and compare with other articles on the website. What style do they use? What subject matter do they target? What text format (i.e. themes, sequence, arguments, references) do they use? How robust is the content (sauces, reasoning, style, information)?
The problem here is that content alone can be a tricky beast. If the purpose of the publication is EITHER to grift and exploit truth seekers OR to inject disinfo into the truth sphere using undiscerning truth seekers as their conduits, then the information is going to be presented in a way that primarily plays to the target audience's (aka YOUR and MY) biases and emotions.
Also, disinfo or clickbait is best delivered in a package of apparent legitimacy, so spotting the red flags can be tricky. The Sauce Check approach above can be used to get leverage on the content, so that one approaches the text content in a far more skeptical way.
Together, however, whether Sauce Check >> Content Analysis, or Content Analysis >> Source Check, the two of these together deliver a powerful basis on which to regard the publication and content as either Friendly to Truth or Hostile to Truth.
Content Analysis Bonus:
Note that in the article(s) looked at here, the pattern is VERY similar to the NewsPunch format:
Sensationalist Over-the-top Headline plus 2-3+ sentences with bold but sourceless assertions about <despised group/individual> plus copy/paste or presentation of actual legitimate information
Make of that what you will.
Addendum: I checked out the SLAY address and it is the same address used at
https://demo.hashthemes.com/viral-mag/news/
Which is only a "demo", leading to the possibility that the operators were preparing it as a possible deployment or as a practice run for other operations.
I'm pretty sure I found that when investigating the (bogus, imo) Son of WEF co-founder Pascal Najadi narrative that came out last month.
The Viral Mag thing follows the pattern of Newspunch and also CNBCUS, also huffmag.com, which present themselves (originally) as a legit general news or interest website, before then being used for disinfo deployments.
https://huffmag.com/category/opinion/
Najadi himself linked to this fake dodgy website (CNBCUSA.com (now defunct)) on Truth Social as evidence that his assertions are true and that its going worldwide!!!, which at a minimum calls in to question his capacity for discernment, and more broadly calls into doubt his legitimacy. Look at all the dodgy places his article was posted (aka select a segment of the text and run a search on google or other search engine).
Disclaimer: I use google for such searches because they have the largest or one of the largest catchment ranges. I'm not looking for suppressed or censored sources, but purely for web presence, etc.
Hat tip to Charles Dickens for "A Tale of Two Cities" https://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98-h/98-h.htm
Damn that was a master class in bullshit detecting. And here I was just mostly using boring ol' common sense.
But seriously anon great work.
u/#correct
Excellent write up.
A deep dig on how to do a deep dig. We appreciate your work. 👌🐸
I apply the same approach here:
https://greatawakening.win/p/17shvo09gf/
Looking at Pascal Najadi. IMO, he doesn't come off very shiny.
On of my favourite techniques is to ask: "How could they know that?"
For instance, I think it was Sweden that first commented on Navalny's death just 15 minutes after the announcement. They blamed it on Putin. How could they know that?
Another instance, I heard a good story on the Interwebs. I wanted to believe it and, to my shame, I passed it straight on to my sister. Then I sat and thought about it. The teller of the story might have seen the original incident but would he have been present in the hospital afterwards to note the outcome? No, the story was too good to be true, he could not have known all those details.
Another tip touched on in the post is to see if the story is repeated. If you find many word for word copies all from unfamiliar sources then it is probably made up.
Good tips, good tips.
I enjoy digging into Twitter Scumbags actual situation. Every state has different laws regarding public information. You would be surprised at what is available on Property Tax Assessors websites. 2 of the 3 examples below came from such sites.
Brooklyn Dad Defiant YouTube channel a Dud, Same with his Website, no content.
Bishop Talbert Swan had multiple child support liens on his home, and has refinanced his Church multiple times.
Jeff Tiedrich has had multiple IRS incidents and trouble with 2 seperate mortgage banks.
"a tale of too shitties" - lolz!!
Great post!
:D
Thank you for the guidance. It's funny because I had just commented on a post about "WEF and homegrown food", saying that it seemed to have zero credibility. Now I have more tools to use to be more critical. It does seem like we're being swamped with bullshit posts that make us look stupid for sharing and discussing. I've been guilty in the past.
I think we all have. We learn via our mistakes, and build on the work done by others.
Early on in 2018, on a few occasions, I posted and shared a few dodgy stories / reports, etc, on r/GreatAwakening (that subreddit was banned in Sept. 2018) and was pretty embarrassed when I found out I'd been hoodwinked. That began a journey of being skeptical, keeping my eyes out for disinfo or clickbait content that would try to trick me or others, and the rest is history.
It's how I first came across and then dug into YourNewsWire (aka NewsPunch, aka (now) ThePeople'sVoice). They've been doing their crap for years.
Owning a construction company and taking care of the family farm takes up a lot of time. I am here all day for the most part but in 10 and 15 minute sessions out in the pole barn office, posting on a pc I bought in 2000 that runs Vista and is unsupported and cant even get on half these websites any longer. (The exception is in the morning. I get up everyday at 330 am and sit in the office in my house for a couple hours before going to work.)
Typically I dont believe much of what I read, especially coming from these fly by night news sources. With an understanding that we are in the midst of a war, and that war is for the mind using psychological techniques designed over years of C_A regime change subterfuge, I use common sense and look for things that play into our known biases or sites that use fantastical claims to choose what I will hold on to for later contemplation. Its not really the best system.
It would be really helpful if some anon could take the information you provided and do a deep dive into all these regularly posted "Patriot" websites so that we could all at a glance check into their veracity using a tool on the sidebar.
Ty for this post FractalizingIron. You continue to be one of the MVPs of this site.
u/#mikeyep
Great suggestion. To be honest, Longtime, for quite some time I felt like I was pissing into the wind (Dutch joke: Why do Belgians have yellow legs? Because they piss into the wind!), but support from mods and other pedes eventually paid off, and I feel like I'm getting some traction in this area.
With u/Fatality's hard hammer punisher mode declaration post the other day, I feel greatly encouraged and feel like I can begin looking at other places to post and report to the board on the data. Data is important, so that we can all draw our own conclusions.
PS. Respect. Owning a company and running a farm... Man, much respect. A prayer for your safety and family's prosperity. wwg1wga
Wow, thanks for laying out this way of sniffing out the disinformation. You are awesome! Bless you and everyone here who takes the time to comment on these BS clickbait articles. Super helpful that when I see a suspicious alarmist article posted, I can look at the comments for verification of my suspicion. After several years on GAW, it’s starting to become more obvious when the articles are fake. I’ve had to calm my relatives down so many times when they send me one of these types of articles. Thanks for your significant efforts.
To be frank and brutally honest, this is what really gets my goat and makes me want to tear into these places. They do real damage. Tangible damage both to our cause, our movement, and to our people.
Evil. The same evil that attacked humanity on an unprecedented level of the Covid19 pysop scandemic. It's really burns me up, so I have to channel that emotion into research and effort to expose that form of evil.
The MSM are one thing, but they are an evil we know. The disinfo and fake alarmist, etc, articles and operations, they attack people who are waking up when they are most vulnerable.
Grrrr......
Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
nice - appreciate the guidance! Some of the tactics I’m familiar with but the avatar stuff was new to me.
Excellent work, thank you! I'm wondering if AI can be leveraged to make the process quicker. I believe they're going to be doing that in Congress to read 1,000 page bills for hidden b*******
Amazing summary about how to get to the granular level on these sites. Nicely organized and concise. Thank you!
Bookmarked, thanks!
I like the 24-48 hour rule as well.
Thank you for this step by step guide for all Anons. Learned some great techniques here & will use this post for reference in the future.
u/#catdance
TYVM-shared
Good info here on determining credibility of author/site.
Thanks for sharing you skills/wisdom.
Awesome post. Thanks for taking the time to write this.
Upvoted for sheer unbridled and unexcelled autism
If there is one thing I hate, it's a bridle!
Ty