If someone were to ask you what disinformation and satirical news publishers have in common, what would be the first thing that comes to mind? Oftentimes, both mimic the presentation of more reliable news sources. While our trust may vary from source to source, most people undoubtedly have at least one source they trust to get their news from. Satirical news sites, such as The Onion, leverage this trust in reliable news sources for comedic purposes or to make a statement. Given their comedic and oftentimes absurd nature, these articles are relatively easy to distinguish from genuine news. However, disinformative news sources can be significantly harder to distinguish. According to Eliska Pirkova, "Disinformation is false or misleading information, created to influence people." These disinformative sources are frequently indistinguishable from reliable news sources, fooling people into accepting their disinformation as fact. As disinformative sources get more thorough in their mimicry, we need to be more discerning of what is fact and what is fiction.
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