Thread by @z3dster

Thanks to Reddit sparking interest in this again I decided to start digging in to this again and whoa boy something is rotten in Denmark

https://twitter.com/MattMillerLSJ/status/1186266684656640000

Using the same techniques I used in this thread I found something way off

https://twitter.com/z3dster/status/1177305947586342913

spyify.com/analytics/5869…

Running their Google Analytics ID I found a list of sites that used the same ID, notice the 2nd from the top yekaterinburgnews.com

just like the other thread the site is gone but to @internetarchive we go! web.archive.org/web/2018041313…

and if we view source we find that UA id and the site looks very similar the other sites mentioned, that being generic Wordpress

except this one isn't for a US city but...

for Yekaterinburg the 4th largest city in Russia.

why was a fake news site in Russia part of a ring of fake news sites in the US?

Even tho the webpage is gone the @Facebook page is still there

facebook.com/Yekaterinburg-…

the transparency report is worthless

Another site in the list is "westafricawire.com"

again gone but still in the archive web.archive.org/web/2018041223…

Again it has a Facebook page facebook.com/WestAfricaWire

It has a live but not used since 2016 twitter profile web.archive.org/web/2020030300…

if we look at the other sites in the group we some names of some owners apparently

and we find one the fake news sites in the "Metro News Network" azbusinessdaily.com

It appears someone is selling fakes news sites ready made on Wordpress and hosting it for these buyers. The main buyers appear to be Chambers and Lobbyists groups, which is an interesting clientèle

doing some more digging on the Russian site and of course in the first set of accounts it followed is every US chamber account it could find tweepdiff.com/YekaterNews/Ye…