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com founder Alex Jones that regularly
shares falsehoods about topics such as
COVID-19 and U.S. politics. The sites
published numerous falsehoods about
the election, including the claims that
the use of Sharpies on Arizona ballots
invalidated votes for Trump and that
Joe Biden had a plan to institute mar-
tial law to steal the election.
The Banned.video network has also
published numerous falsehoods about
COVID-19, including a video in May
2020 that claimed a COVID-19 vaccine
had been found to “cause sterility in
97% of women” and another vaccine
being developed for men “resulted in
decreased testicular size, drop of tes-
tosterone levels, and marked atrophy
of the prostate.” Banned.video earns a
credibility score of 7.5 out of 100 from
NewsGuard based on nine apolitical
journalistic criteria.
Another top domain on the list
was FrontPageMag.com, which earns
a NewsGuard trust score of 22.5 out
of 100 for publishing falsehoods
about a range of topics, including
false claims of widespread voter
fraud and COVID-19 myths.
The top sites in the list also included
domains such as ThePolitics.online,
Speech-Point.com, Freespeech-Time.
com, and Free-Speechfront.info,
which are part of a network of
anti-Muslim websites reportedly run
from Israel whose owners repeat-
edly change domain names and take
down sites in the network once they
are flagged by fact-checkers or by mis-
information-tracking organizations.NewsGuard has tracked and rated
more than a dozen sites in the network,
which earns a credibility score of 22 out
of 100 from NewsGuard for publishing
a range of misleading stories, distorted
facts and manipulated images.
Sites promoting the QAnon con-
spiracy theory were prominent in
the dataset, including NeonRevolt.
com, an anonymously run website
popular with QAnon supporters that
tracks posts from “Q,” the purported
figure at the center of the conspiracy
theory. The site, which was shared by
Trump’s campaign lawyer Lin Wood,
earns a credibility score of 20 out of
100 from NewsGuard for publish-
ing numerous false claims, includ-
ing claiming the 2020 election was
“fraudulent” and that COVID-19 is a
“Chinese bioweapon.”
Many of the links shared in the
dataset were not from news or infor-
mation domains. For example, the
dataset included more than 1,000 links
to e-commerce sites selling weapons,
“prepper” gear, supposed nutritional
supplements and other merchandise.
While the dataset was not exhaus-
tive—it covered a relatively short
time frame in early January—the
findings suggest Parler was a hotbed
for misinformation publishers.
Many misinformation publishers,
including those involved in spread-
ing falsehoods about the 2020 elec-
tion, depend on click-throughs from
social media platforms to drive page
views and advertising revenue. As
mainstream platforms like Twitter
and Facebook face regulatory pres-
sure to reduce the spread of misinfor-
mation, misinformation sources may
continue to shift to less controlled
platforms like Parler.Ơ Matt Skibinski is general manager of
NewsGuard. Kendrick McDonald con-
tributed reporting to this piece.Despite its name,
AmericanConservatives.today
is run from Kumanovo,
a city in North Macedonia.