Fake News Filter against false messages
False claims about refugees in Europe or “alternative facts”: Such stories are fake news examples – purposely created false stories which can go viral on social media very quickly. Depending on the number of contacts, a careless “like” for a fake news story can possibly be seen by hundreds or thousands of users. But how to spot fake news?
It is generally understood that not everything published on the Internet is true. For instance, many sites use click-bait headlines to lure users into reading fake news, often for commercial purposes. Some people even suspect that the US election was influenced by fake news, for instance by false reports about Muslim refugees in Europe, to instill fear into the population and also to provide arguments for the continued surveillance of citizens.
Use the Fake News Filter
Since fake news are becoming a frequent annoyance we have decided to implement a fake news filter with a correspondingly block list in our TrackStop filter which will cut off all known fake news domains.
We want to emphasize that we do not decide which domains are fake news and which are not. Instead we are using a publicly available filter list hosted on GitHub to which anyone can contribute.
Always verify stories yourself
Also it should be obvious that such a block list cannot guarantee a perfect protection against all possible fake news. For one thing, such a list can never be 100% complete and for another many false stories are spread over Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites without giving a source. And even respectable news sites do not always report the truth (although they usually correct it should something prove as false). The most important thing remains to be critical of all news and ideally use alternative sources to get an objective overview.
When the fake news filter is active, you won’t be able to access any of the domains on the filter list. This makes it a bit easier to follow the vast surge of daily news without having to verify stories written by known fake news publishers.
Don’t fall for obvious nonsense on the Internet and activate the Perfect Privacy fake news filter today.