Politics
Lessons From the Fake New York Times Wikileaks Op-ed
On Sunday July 29th a fake NYT op-ed from Bill Keller appeared online and within hours had spread like wildfire across Twitter, including being retweeted by NYT staff. Below is a recap of what happened, and a look at some of the lessons this episode suggests about digital literacy and verification.
- Below is a link to the fake op-ed. The page is designed just like a New York Times page, but you'll notice that the URL is wrong. The word "opinion" precedes the "nytimes.com" - the real URL for NYT opinion pages is: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html. Many phishing websites use words, preceding the "official" URL as a way to spoof websites and mislead people. The fake website was incredibly intricate and well done, which helped the op-ed spread quickly.
WikiLeaks, a Post PostscriptAS rumors build about the potential financial blockade against the New York Times by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express for hosting U...- [Update: Wikileaks is now taking credit for the fake op-ed: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/229660297655382016. "Yes. We admit it. WikiLeaks (Assange & co) and our great supporters where (sic) behind the successful NYTimes banking blockade hoax on @nytkeller." h/t to Ernie Smith at ShortFormBlog for tipping me off to this news]
- It's unclear how long this webpage will stay live, so below is a screenshot.
- In under an hour the piece had spread rapidly including being link to by New York Times tech columnist Nick Bilton.
Important piece by @nytkeIler defending @WikiLeaks and a plea to protect the First Amendment: opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opi…
@NYTimes' Bill Keller: "[A]ttempt to criminalize #WikiLeaks’ publication of [cables] is an attack on all of us . . . " opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opi…
When NY Times, not just Wikileaks, feels serious heat, Bill Keller cares oh so much more about protecting journalism opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opi…
Does anyone know what Bill Keller's referring to re: State Dept pressure on Visa/MC to cut off newspapers? is.gd/CXZgXe- By morning Bill Keller had responded strongly and others began to correct or delete their earlier tweets.
.@nytkeller Sorry to be taken in by fake op-ed. Was led to it by your own apparent retweet: twitter.com/journalismfest…Some good information forensics have already helped turn up some clues about where this fake op-ed originated from.
- Chris Soghoian pointed to these two tweets from accounts associated with Anonymous and Wikileaks around 1:00 am on the morning of July 29th as the first two tweets about the op-ed.
Was this the 1st tweet to fake NYT Keller op ed? twitter.com/wikileaks/stat… Took just 25 mins for the NYT's @nickbilton to tweet to 120k followers
"AS rumors build about the potential financial blockade against the New York Times by Visa, Mastercard, " | NYTimes opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opi…
NYTimes' Bill Keller says "criminalizing #Wikileaks publication of cables is an attack on all of us." opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opi…- However, Theodora Michaels found an earlier tweet from @Block_NYTimes, posted just after midnight.
@jcstearns There were earlier tweets with that url from @Block_NYTimes, see ie twitter.com/Block_NYTimes/… @Newyorkist @AntDeRosa @nickbilton
Bill Keller called us an "upstart radical group" opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opi…- Zeynep Tufekci and Christopher Soghoian looked up the WHOIS info for the URL and found that this stunt was in the works since spring of this year.
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- OccupyBayStreetThis is pretty important too https://twitter.com/nickbilton/status/2295894009657589762012-07-29T14:59:56.559Z
- OccupyBayStreetSince you have the James Ball quote, probably ought to include this too from Glenn Greenwald https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/2295679097085911042012-07-29T14:52:24.900Z
- OccupyBayStreetThis is pretty important too https://twitter.com/nickbilton/status/2295894009657589762012-07-29T14:59:56.559Z
- OccupyBayStreetSince you have the James Ball quote, probably ought to include this too from Glenn Greenwald https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/2295679097085911042012-07-29T14:52:24.900Z
