A Lot Of Facebook Users Have Been Fooled By This Pretty Scary Trick Website

A website called 'Clone Zone' has been tricking Facebook users into believing fabricated news stories. The problem was highlighted when a false story which appeared to have been published by the New York Times about US Senator Elizabeth Warren. The story, which suggested that Senator Warren endorsed Bernie Sanders for the President of the United States, had all the trademarks of The Times, including bylines that belong to reporters who work for the publication. The fabricated story was viewed more than 50,000 times and had 15,000 shares on Facebook. It later emerged that the story was not genuine, but was the work of the site 'Clone Zone' which allows users to edit stories online and publish them under the guise of a well-known publication. The site's creators, 4REAL, later removed the article, but shunned responsibility in a tweet:

4REAL does not create the articles that go viral on Clone Zone, we merely facilitate them, 4REAL also does *not endorse any political party

— 4REAL (@4REALGLOBAL) March 1, 2016

The site's homepage offers a range of websites to choose from, under which you can then create your false story, a practice which the site's developers refer to as "art". Creative director Analisa Teachworth explained: “We really come from the perspective that art can be anything." “It’s a commentary on the culture of information spreading itself, like, the nature of the Internet." If you're not sure about the legitimacy of an article, check the URL. If it contains the words, clone.zone.link, it's likely a fake.