One of TrustServista’s key principle in detecting misinformation on the web is that each story and each article should be intelligently handled on its own, without making use of predefined “fake news websites” lists, that have the potential of being biased of having no long term relevance.
One recent example is when we stumbled upon a post from FlyHeight.com, a news agregator that is regarded by fact checking organizations as a “fake news websiste”. The post Jetblue Kicks Family Off Plane Because Their Birthday Cake Was Declared A “security Risk!” by author Rog (aka lethalrog) did not gain any social media notoriety, but had “clickbait” written all over it: no article content, instead just a video with no source or citation, a title that raised red flags, an anonymous author and no context. TrustServista gave it a 10% trustworthiness score: https://www.trustservista.com/alphaui/#/articledashboardurl/?url=http:%2F%2Fwww.flyheight.com%2Fvideos%2Fjetblue-kicks-family-off-plane-because-their-birthday-cake-was-declared-a-security-risk%2F
However, even with these red flags and a source that was regarded as being “fake news”, it turns out the video is real and the story is 100% true.
It was published first by ABC7NY.com and has since been picked up by US mainstream media. The origin of the information (Patient Zero) was traced back to a Twitter status embedding the video depicting the incident:
You can test this analysis on TrustServista: https://www.trustservista.com/alphaui/#/articledashboardbyurl/?url=http:%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2017%2F05%2F14%2Fjetblue-allegedly-kicks-family-off-flight-over-birthday-cake%2F
Patient Zero, a Tweet from user CeFaan Kim (and ABC7 NY Reporter) has been found also by analyzing the article on the same story published by USA Today or Fox News.
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Other publications that have covered the story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4503800/JetBlue-boots-family-flight-birthday-cake.html
http://fortune.com/2017/05/15/jetblue-birthday-cake/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/family-jetblue-kicked-off-plane-carry-cake-47407459
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jetblue-birthday-cake-family-kicked-off-plane/
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