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MEMBERS ONLY Snopes Digest

April 28, 2020 • Issue #9

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2 Behind the Snopes Doreen Marchionni, vice president of editorial, explains why our investigations share a particular theme.

3 In Case You Missed It The most popular and most important stories on Snopes.com lately.

4 Snopes-worthy Reads Good stories we’ve shared amongst ourselves recently.

Issue #9 edited by Brandon Echter and Bond Huberman

1. Misinformation at Scale brandonechter, we here at Snopes have sussed out thousands of dubious claims, some shared innocuously and others pushed for more nefarious reasons. But some of the most puzzling we’ve seen are those distributed by practitioners who know how to make it seem like there’s a crowd where there is none.

Whether it’s fake accounts inflating Facebook groups or outlets creating new accounts to get around bans, the use of bots, automation, and impersonation for the sake of fraud is widespread on the internet. It’s called coordinated inauthentic behavior, and you don’t have to look far for examples.

In this issue of the Snopes Digest, we’re shining a light on the tactics employed to push political agendas, scam unsuspecting users, and manipulate people — and until the platforms hosting this activity put a stop to it, Snopes will be there to track them down.

Stay vigilant, Team Snopes

We Want to Hear from You What have you experienced during the coronavirus pandemic? How are you holding up? We want to hear how our readers are living through this crisis.

Tell Us Your Story

Snopes-tionary

Speak like an insider! Each newsletter, we’ll explain a term or piece of fact- checking lingo that we use on the Snopes team.

Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior: A phrase popularized and defined by Facebook as the use of multiple social media accounts or pages that hide the real identities of people running the accounts in order to mislead and/or influence people for political or financial ends. As of April 2, 2020, Facebook reports it has removed thousands of accounts this year for such activity.

2. Behind The Snopes

Let’s talk about what’s going on with Snopes: the newsroom, the products, the people, and everything and anything that makes Snopes, Snopes. This week Doreen Marchionni, vice president of editorial, explains why our investigations take a certain focus.

For the past few years, Snopes’ special investigations have focused almost exclusively on “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on social platforms, particularly the biggest platform of all, Facebook, where such behavior is supposed to be prohibited. Whether such activity is designed to manipulate U.S. elections or steal people’s money, we think it makes perfect sense for Snopes to go after. Most of what we fact-check each day is misinformation circulating widely on those same social networks — the kind of stuff that sets alarms off in your head. Information too good to be true, too awful to be right, too ridiculous to deserve attention. And because the content on these largely unregulated platforms reaches so many people at such lightning speeds with little or no consequences, we owe it to our community to hold bad actors there accountable. We hope you find our investigations enlightening.

Next time, you’ll hear from another member of the Snopes team about a unique aspect of working here that you might find interesting. Do you want us to cover something specific? Write to us here!

Snopesing 101 Fact-check like a pro! We let you peek behind the curtain and see some of the ways we check shady information so you can check dubious claims yourself. This week, Operations Editor Jordan Liles explains how to spot coordinated inauthentic behavior, or CIB, in the wild.

Coordinated inauthentic behavior can be quite easy to see, if you know where to look. Facebook pages and groups have different indicators that, together, can help users better understand the content they’re consuming.

“Page Transparency.” Every Facebook page has a section called “Page Transparency” that allows users to see the countries from which page managers are posting content. It also displays past name changes for that page. In mobile view, the section appears a little bit before you scroll to page posts. In desktop view, it appears on the right side of the page. Facebook groups do not have a transparency feature.

“Like and Share!” Take note if a page posts an endless onslaught of memes, asking readers to “Like and Share!” This alone does not mean that rules are being broken, but it is something Snopes staff often observe when investigating networks of coordinated inauthentic behavior.

Page creation date. If a page or group about U.S. politics says it was created three weeks ago, for example, and it’s highly political, and it appears to not be run from inside the U.S., that’s a good lead to investigate. To find the page or group creation date, click “Page Transparency” on pages or the “About” page in groups.

Verified? If a Facebook page is “verified,” a blue badge displays next to the profile or page name and it likely represents the organization or person it claims to represent. To obtain the blue-badge page, administrators must provide documentation to Facebook to verify their authenticity. No blue badge? Stay alert.

Admins. Facebook gives users the ability to see who the admins are for groups only (not for pages). This can sometimes lead to quick clues that some political groups are foreign-run, despite claiming to be run from inside the U.S. In Facebook groups, click “Members” to see the page that lists admins, moderators, and members.

Use these pointers to help you spot red flags and see whether page administrators are being forthright about where they operate. And if you see something fishy, send us a tip.

4. In Case You Missed It

The latest news and fact checks on Snopes.com.

During a months-long Snopes investigation, reporters Dan MacGuill and Jordan Liles uncovered a network of foreign-run Facebook pages whose tactics and patterns of behavior violate multiple Facebook policies. While their motivations are unclear, many of these pages are aimed at tricking desperate Americans into following them with scams like coronavirus- grocery giveaways. Read the investigation here.

No sooner had economic stimulus checks been promised to Americans whose incomes were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than reports circulated saying delivery of the checks would be delayed so U.S. President Donald Trump’s name could be imprinted on them. U.S. Treasury officials confirmed Trump’s name would indeed appear on the checks, but they were "scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned."

What do Tom Hanks, Ringo Starr, Bill Murray, and Arsenio Hall have in common? They’re all celebrities who, though very much alive, have seen their names exploited in false, clickbait reports claiming they had died and left their fortunes to Trump’s political campaign. Don’t let the “satire” label on these articles fool you; a hoax is a hoax is a hoax.

Why are people accusing Bill Gates and an organization called the ID2020 Coalition of using COVID-19 to build a global surveillance state? In short, thanks to his longtime pro- vaccination and digital-identity research activities, Gates has become fodder for a labyrinthine conspiracy theory claiming he leads a nefarious global surveillance plan foretold in the Book of Revelations. The true facts are decidedly more mundane.

Trump placed himself at the center of another coronavirus controversy by appearing to suggest during a press briefing that injecting or ingesting disinfectants could treat COVID-19. Though his supporters insisted Trump’s words were taken out of context, medical experts and manufacturers of household disinfectants saw fit to respond with warnings that such products should never be “administered into the human body.” What did Trump really say and what did he mean by it? Snopes Reporter Dan Evon reports.

Have a story tip? Send it here!

Featured Collection Snopes investigates the coordinated efforts of trolls, scams, and campaigns that aren't quite what they seem.

Read the Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Collection

5. Snopes-worthy Reads

What Team Snopes is reading across the web.

A Disturbing New Study Suggests Sean Hannity’s Show Helped Spread the Coronavirus Zach Beauchamp, Vox

What It Really Means When Trump Calls a Story ‘Fake News’ Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post Opinion

The Deepfakes Are Coming from Inside the White House David Frum, The Atlantic

Coronavirus Scammers Are Flooding Social Media with Fake Cures and Tests Rebecca Heilweil, Slate

Facebook Agreed to Censor Posts After Vietnam Slowed Traffic, Say Sources James Pearson, The Star

Have any recommended reads? Submit them here.

Mental Health Break Team Snopes investigates some grim and depressing claims, so we know how important it is to your mental health to see something silly, funny, or just plain heartwarming. Here are some links that made us smile.

Kennel Employees Cheer as Every Animal Is Adopted - Twitter

Dog Steals Fake Teeth, Runs Around with Gigantic Smile in Viral Video - Michael Hollan, NY Post

The Pets of Snopes It’s true: The Snopes “team” was once just two people and a cat. Twenty- five years later, we have more humans and more cats (and even some dogs) than at our once-humble beginnings. We want you to meet our furry, fact-finding friends because, well, who doesn’t love a cute animal picture? Meet one of Editorial Assistant Liz Donaldson’s assistants, Minerva, also known as “The Orange One Bit Me Again.” She is currently investigating the urban legend that birds were all replaced by drones in 1983!

Thanks for reading this edition of the Snopes Digest. We’ll be releasing the newsletter every two weeks, so please add this email address to your white list and keep an eye out on May 12 for the next issue.

You can read the previous issue here.

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