A repository to monitor attack vectors
Running parallel to this effort| some conservatives have been experimenting with a scheme to exploit the credibility of local journalism. Over the past few years| hundreds of websites with innocuous-sounding names like the Arizona Monitor and The Kalamazoo Times have begun popping up. At first glance| they look like regular publications| complete with community notices and coverage of schools. But look closer and you’ll find that there are often no mastheads| few if any bylines| and no addresses for local offices. Many of them are organs of Republican lobbying groups; others belong to a mysterious company called Locality Labs| which is run by a conservative activist in Illinois. Readers are given no indication that these sites have political agendas—which is precisely what makes them valuable
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/
Their shit looks really real: https://kalamazootimes.com until you start looking at all the articles at once: https://kalamazootimes.com/stories/tag/126-politics
- https://northmichigannews.com
- https://annarbortimes.com
- https://grandrapidsreporter.com
- https://lansingsun.com
- https://pontiactimes.com
- https://micapitolnews.com
- https://eastmichigannews.com
- https://waterlootimes.com
- https://iowacitytoday.com
- https://phxreporter.com
- **But wait, there's 700+ more **we found from dumping domains hosted by the same servers on AWS (Amazon Web Services).
Some quick Google-fu with a sentence from their about page: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Metric+Media+was+established+to+fill+the+void+in+community+news+after+years+of+decline+in+local+reporting+by+legacy+media.%22&rlz=1C1GCEU_nlNL823NL823&filter=0
| awsOrigin | domain | facebookUrl | siteName | likes and followers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.218.216.245 | akronreporter.com | |||
| 3.218.216.245 | andersonreporter.com | |||
| 3.218.216.245 | annarbortimes.com | https://business.facebook.com/Ann-Arbor-Times-105059500884218/?business_id=898179107217559 | Ann Arbor Times | 43 people like this!? |
| 3.218.216.245 | battlecreektimes.com | https://business.facebook.com/Battle-Creek-Times-101371024590467/?business_id=898179107217559 | Battle Creek Times | 16 people like this!? |
But wait, there's 80+ more with Facebook business_id's extracted from a crawl for related publications ("Other Publications"), Facebook pages, and Site names.