COUNCILLORS IN U.S. HOAX
Fake news site poaches pics
It’s a new career path that came as a surprise to one Calgary city councillor, and he can’t wait to start throwing his weight around.
Coun. Sean Chu was amused to discover Tuesday morning that his official City of Calgary headshot displayed prominently on the staff biography page of chicagoeveningpost.com, listing the veteran municipal politician as “Dean Weaver,” intrepid senior editor for the online news site.
“Right away, my thought was … wow, that’s funny,” Chu said with a laugh.
“And then I saw my title as senior editor with all of the other councillors at the bottom — and I thought, ‘finally, now I can boss them around!’”
The Evening Post’s newsroom is rounded out by five other veteran newshounds, depicted by photos of four other Calgary councillors, as well as a photo of Detroit, Mich., city councillor Mary Sheffield, listed as “deputy politics editor Elizabeth Antoski.”
Dean Weaver’s biography is oddly specific, purportedly born in the central Illinois city of Peoria, and stating he “cut his teeth as a beat report (sic) in Buffalo and Pittsburgh.”
None of the names or biographies seemed to match any actual journalist, and by Tuesday afternoon the images were removed from the Evening Post’s website.
While appearing to be a legitimate site featuring Chicago-centric news stories, don’t count on dropping by their newsroom for a visit.
Closer inspection reveals the Evening Post’s offices are at a non-existent address in the North Chicago neighbourhood of Ravenswood, located in the middle of a street between an investment office and busy juice/espresso bar.
A phone number listed on the website went to a voice mail box belonging to “1011.”
The Evening Post’s website claims to be operated by the Perpetual Publishing Company, a “24/7/365 news syndication service, publishing platform and information technology partner.”
That company appears to be associated with a number of news aggregator websites of questionable pedigree, including Canadian Business Tribune, a site purporting to be an “authoritative insight” on Canadian business, financial and tech news, and The Advocator, featuring articles affecting Canada’s minority population and claiming to be owned by Quebecor Media.
Nothing but a desolate stretch of rural road exists at the Montreal address listed for Canadian Business Tribune, while the Gatineau, Que.-based Advocator — which lists the same street address — is actually a pizzeria about a kilometre-and-a-half north of the Ottawa River. Both list downtown Toronto postal codes.
Staff bios for the Tribune and Advocator are likewise fake, featuring actor headshots stolen from southern Ontario theatre companies, including the Stratford Festival and Soulpepper.
Richard Henderson, Global Security Strategist at Vancouverbased Absolute Software, said sites such as this exist to collect advertising revenue by making news stories — either collected from legitimate or fabricated sources — go viral on social media.
“In most cases, the names of the ‘journalists’ are made up, and these platforms solely exist to create advertising revenue,” he said, noting many of the ads hosted on these sites contain malicious or dangerous content.
“Some of that advertising can be very dangerous for the content viewers,” he said. “Many of the ads peddle get-rich-quick schemes through mechanisms such as cryptocurrencies, while others will attempt to get you to install questionable or downright malicious browser extensions that can steal your personal information.”