Fake news has become extremely prevalent in recent years forcing organizations like Facebook and Google to take extensive measures to stop these maliciously fabricated stories from going viral.

Although many people believe the fake news stories that have been published across the internet, it is not that difficult to discern what is real and what is fabricated.  Many fake news sites take on the title of a big news source with a strange URL, like abcnews.com.co or they site themselves as alternative news platforms like, WhatDoesItMean.com.

Diving deeper into the website the news is coming from is one way to spot fake news.  It is important to look for red flags like gmail addresses as contact information or disclosures about “fantasy news” or things of that sort.

Often times, fake news articles will contain various misspellings, excessive exclamation points, unidentifiable authors and messages saying “this is not a hoax!” and these are all giveaways that the news may not be real.  People can also end the spread of fake news by reading beyond a shocking headline.  People often just pass on an article after reading and intriguing headline without reading the body of the article which may clearly indicate the story is fabricated or may even have a satire disclaimer.

Another important way to spot fake news is to check sources the article sites.  Many times the sources are legitimate but clearly contradict the article once further research has been conducted or the sources may not be real at all.  FactCheck.org provides news consumers with various ways to spot out fake news here.

NPR spoke to fake news expert, Craig Silverman about the spread of fake news during political campaigns.  Silverman zoned in on fake news sites that were largely based in Macedonia and run by teens and university students.  They utilized Facebook as a driver and were able to generate traffic to their sites via engagement on Facebook.  Facebook served as the driving force for this traffic.  The traffic these platforms generate on Facebook leads them to make money via Google Adsense.  Although Google AdSense does require users to meet the terms of service and many of the fake news sites violate these terms, they still have AdSense and are still making money spreading false information.

Facebook has review processes for content that is posted on the site but clearly fake news is still slipping through the cracks.

The full transcription between NPR and Craig Silverman can be found here.