PropOrNot
PropOrNot logo
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| Motto | Is It Propaganda Or Not? - Your Friendly Neighborhood Propaganda Identification Service, Since 2016! |
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| Type | Website |
| Legal status | Online |
| Purpose | News analysis |
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Official language
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English |
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Executive Director
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Anonymous |
| Website | www |
PropOrNot is a group that seeks to expose what it calls Russian propaganda and groups that use material from Russian sources.
PropOrNot's methods and its anonymity have received criticism from many publications, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Fortune, The Intercept, and Rolling Stone.
The website is anonymously written; a spokesperson for the website who spoke by phone to The New Yorker was described as an American male who was "well versed in Internet culture and swore enthusiastically." The same spokesperson said that the group comprised around 40 individuals.
PropOrNot says there was a Russian propaganda effort involved in propagating fake news during the 2016 U.S. election. PropOrNot has said it analyzed data from Twitter and Facebook and tracked propaganda from a disinformation campaign by Russia that had a national reach of 15 million people within the United States. PropOrNot concluded that accounts belonging to both Russia Today and Sputnik News promoted "false and misleading stories in their reports," and additionally magnified other false articles found on the Internet to support their propaganda effort.
PropOrNot published a list of websites they called "bona-fide ‘useful idiots’" of the Russian government based on methodology they called "a combination of manual and automated analysis, including analysis of content, timing, technical indicators, and other reporting". The group's list included Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, the Ron Paul Institute, Black Agenda Report, Truthout, Truthdig, antiwar.com, and CounterPunch, although they did not provide any individual analysis to justify inclusion on the list. CounterPunch in response called PropOrNot a "shady little group," its findings "bogus," and their inclusion on the list a "baseless allegation." After email communications, PropOrNot agreed to remove CounterPunch from the list.
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Wikipedia