Natural News
Conspiracy theory and fake news website / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Natural News (formerly NewsTarget, which is now a separate sister site) is a far-right, anti-vaccination conspiracy theory and fake news website known for promoting alternative medicine, pseudoscience, disinformation, and far-right extremism.[1][9] The website began publishing articles in 2008 and is based in the United States.[1][6]
Type of site | Fake news website |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Country of origin | United States |
Owner | Mike Adams |
Created by | Mike Adams |
URL | www |
Commercial | Nutraceuticals |
Launched | 2008 |
The site's founder, Michael Allen "Mike" Adams, gained attention after posting a blog entry implying a call for violence against proponents of GMO foods, and then allegedly creating another website with a list of names of alleged supporters. He has been accused of using "pseudoscience to sell his lies".[10] Adams has described vaccines as "medical child abuse".[11]
The website sells various dietary supplements, promotes alternative medicine and climate change denial, makes tendentious nutrition and health claims,[12] disseminates fake news,[20] and espouses various conspiracy theories and pro-Donald Trump propaganda.[21][22] These conspiracy theories include chemophobic claims about the purported dangers of "chemtrails",[5] fluoridated drinking water,[23] heavy metals, anti-perspirants, laundry detergent, monosodium glutamate, aspartame, and vaccines.[5][12][24] It has also spread conspiracy theories about the Zika virus allegedly being spread by genetically modified mosquitoes[25] and purported adverse effects of genetically modified crops, as well as the farming practices associated with and foods derived from them.[26]
As of 2014, Natural News had approximately 7 million unique visitors per month.[8]
In May 2020, Facebook banned Natural News content from its platform after discovering that the site was boosting its popularity using content farms in North Macedonia and the Philippines, a form of spamming.[27] Natural News bypassed the ban by republishing its content on a large number of topic-specific domain names, including trump.news, extinction.news, mind.control.news, and veggie.news.[27][28] The Institute for Strategic Dialogue found 496 domain names associated with Natural News as of June 2020 with Registered Agents Inc. serving as the registered agent for multiple Natural News-affiliated companies.[28][1]