Russia Launches a ‘Fake-News Website’ to Combat Inaccurate Coverage from the West

The Russian Foreign Ministry launched a new project aimed at preventing what it calls fake foreign coverage of Russian affairs. The webpage, part of the Foreign Ministry’s website, currently has five screenshot images of articles from several western publications with a superimposed red stamp that reads “FAKE.” The images do not provide indication of what was allegedly false in each article. A line of superimposed text states: “This article puts forward information that does not correspond to reality.”

“We don’t expect there to be a shortage of material for this section,” the Moscow Times reported the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson saying on Wednesday.

The first story posted on the Foreign Ministry webpage was an NBC exclusive reporting that Russia was considering turning over Edward Snowden to the United States. The NBC report cited an anonymous source for the information, describing the source as a “senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations.”

Several other stories purported to contain false news were from the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times and Bloomberg.