Fake news websites are all over the internet. Getty
The internet is full of fake news and parody sites. For a long time, people knew them for what they were: sites aimed at entertaining readers with a satirical take on the news.
But as trust in the mainstream media has eroded, and use of social media as a news source has risen, fake news may have become more influential than ever before.
As John Oliver pointed out in Sunday's episode of "Last Week Tonight," 62 percent of Americans get their news from social media, and 44 percent get their news specifically from Facebook.
On Facebook, people can choose the media outlets they follow, so only those outlets will show up on their news feed.
"The impact of corrections [from mainstream media], which may have sunk a candidate in another era, was compromised because there is no longer a consensus on what a fact is," Oliver explained. "Trust in mainstream media outlets has been falling and people can choose to get their news from echo chambers that validate their views."
Even search results have been affected.
For example, the top Google news link for "final election results" on Monday was from a fake-news site called "70 News" which "reported" that Donald Trump had won both the electoral and popular vote. As the Washington Post points out, that's simply not true.
Complicating matters are the plethora of left- and right-leaning propaganda sites out there, deliberately spreading misinformation in order to appeal to certain groups. Satire sites like The Onion and The Borowitz Report are one thing; sites that promote hoaxes for click-bait or play to people's deepest fears are quite another.
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"Fake facts circulate on social media to a frightening extent... There is now a whole cottage industry specializing in hyper-partisan, sometimes wildly distorted clickbait," Oliver explained.
To combat the circulation of misinformation, Fake News Watch has compiled a list of websites that have been known to be untruthful, ranging from satirical websites to sites trying to pass off lies as truth.
Here are several fake news sites that have become popular on Facebook, and which should be avoided if you're looking for the facts:
| Publication Name | Approximate Facebook Following | Type of News Outlet |
| The Onion | 6,000,000 | Satire |
| The Borowitz Report - The New Yorker | 3,000,000 | Satire |
| Duffel Blog | 250,000 | Satire |
| Newslo | 170,000 | Satire |
| Weekly World News | 100,000 | Satire |
| Clickhole | 600,000 | Satire |
| American News | 5,000,000 | Hoax |
| DC Gazette | 420,000 | Hoax |
| Activist Post | 540,000 | Propaganda |
| Before It's News | 400,000 | Propaganda |
| Daily Buzz Live | 160,000 | Propaganda |
| Disclose TV | 1,900,000 | Propaganda |
| InfoWars | 613,000 | Propaganda |
| Natural News | 2,000,000 | Propaganda |
| Red Flag News | 270,000 | Propaganda |
| World Truth TV | 1,700,000 | Propaganda |
You can follow Rachel Dicker on Twitter or reach her at rdicker@usnews.com.
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