Anatomy of aDisinformation
Empire:Investigating
NaturalNews

2‘THE GREAT REPLACEMENT’: THE VIOLENT CONSEQUENCES OF MAINSTREAMED EXTREMISM / Document title:

About this paper
This report presents the findings of an extensive
investigation into a network of domains connectedto NaturalNews, a US-based commercial enterprise
and website promoting conspiracy theories anddisinformation. Using a combination of data analysis
and open source intelligence (OSINT), this study
examines the scale and nature of the NaturalNews
network, including its reach on Facebook, itsconnections to and promotion of far-right and extremist
ideology and its activities in relation to COVID-19 andthe protests associated with the killing of George Floyd.
This investigation shines a light on the enduranceof coordinated disinformation networks on and offsocial media platforms, as well as the challenges forand remaining limitations of technological companies’
responses to such threats.

Copyright © Institute for Strategic Dialogue (2020). Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is a company limited byguarantee, registered office address PO Box 75769, London, SW1P 9ER. ISD is registered in England with company
registration number 06581421 and registered charity number 1141069. All Rights Reserved. Any copying,
reproduction or exploitation of the whole or any part of this document or attachments without prior written
approval from ISD is prohibited.

Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

Contents
Executive Summary	Key Findings	Glossary	Background	
Scope, Methodology, and Limitations	Part 1: Analysis of NaturalNews’ presence on Facebook

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– Scale of the NaturalNews network on Facebook– Content of NaturalNews network on Facebook– Sharing Patterns of the NaturalNews network on Facebook– International networks around NaturalNews on Facebook– Facebook page promotion − avoiding NaturalNews bans on FacebookPart 2: OSINT Investigation into the NaturalNews network

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– The NaturalNews website network – size and scope– NaturalNews on Facebook – Investigation II
– Content of the NaturalNews Network on Facebook– Business intelligence research into corporate entities linked to NaturalNews
Conclusion	
Appendix	

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NewsGuard List of NaturalNews-Affiliated DomainsPossible NaturalNews-Affiliated Domains Identified by ISD
Fact-Checking

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

Executive Summary
As the US has grappled with the emergence ofmassive social justice mobilisation around the killingof George Floyd and the simultaneous impact of theCoronavirus pandemic, disinformation has provena constant hazard. Social media platforms like
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube played central rolesin the hosting and amplifying disinformation andconspiracy theories surrounding both phenomena,
with extremist groups, conspiracy movements,
political entities and foreign states all playing theirpart to exploit the health crisis and political turmoil.1
Amid this swell of disinformation, the Institute forStrategic Dialogue (ISD) has explored a complex
web of social media and website infrastructureused to create, promote, and target health andpolitical disinformation. ISD’s research analyses
the nature and scale of the NaturalNews empire
built by Mike Adams, a businessman connected
to extremist figures including Alex Jones and theanti-government militia group known as the Oath
Keepers. NaturalNews is widely acknowledged to bea prolific source of disinformation relating to both
health and politics.2 ISD’s report examines its recent
activities in relation to COVID-19 and the protests
associated with the George Floyd killing, as well as its
historic promotion of extremist material, conspiracy
theories and health disinformation.
The complex web of infrastructure surrounding
NaturalNews is vast. Its activities remain largely
unchecked on social media sites, where it finds
platforms to proselytise. Despite being banned fromFacebook in 2019 and again in 2020, NaturalNews
has continued to post on branded Facebook groups
and appears linked to a network of over 400+
affiliated domains, including domains promoting
extremist and violent material.3 In May 2020,
Facebook banned posts with links to NaturalNews.
com, NewsTarget.com, and Brighteon.com, all ofwhich appear to be owned and run by NaturalNews
and its founders.

These sites were banned from the platform afterusing content from troll farms in Macedonia andthe Philippines. But existing efforts from Twitterand Facebook to limit the presence of NaturalNews,and recent attempts to stem the spread of someof its affiliated sites, have failed to halt the ride of
disinformation from the empire established byAdams over the last decade.
ISD’s analysis identified over 18,000 links to
NaturalNews affiliated websites that were sharedin public Facebook groups and pages over a nearly
three-month period at the start of 2020. These links
engendered nearly 100,000 likes, over 327,000
shares, and over 33,000 comments.4 The vast
majority of the network’s sites continue to spread
unchecked on Facebook pages and groups, despite
the efforts of companies to rein in NaturalNews.
ISD’s research demonstrates the significant
infrastructure and perseverance of disinformation
purveyors who seek to spread harmful and false
information. It also shows the as yet unmet
challenge that has been placed at the foot ofsocial media companies to stop their platforms
from providing these actors with a loudspeaker
to reach hundreds of thousands of people. The
reactive game of cat and mouse that companies
currently rely upon to reduce the potency of suchnetworks has proven inherently limited when
dealing with vast networks of interconnected andlong-established domains like NaturalNews. While
the accounts, pages and groups used to host andpromote the NaturalNews network have begun
to disappear as researchers and companies havestarted to understand the scale of the NaturalNews
operation online, the policies and actions ofcompanies dealing with outbound links to known
disinformation and extremist domains remain
opaque and inadequate in stemming the tide. Thereare challenging but urgent decisions that companies
must take on how to confront disinformation
empires that stretch across but also far beyond theirown platform borders.

1 For a general discussion of health and coronavirus disinformation on these platforms, see Bellingcat’s investigation: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/04/03/
how-coronavirus-disinformation-gets-past-social-media-moderators/; See also NewsGuard’s investigation into disinformation “super spreaders” on Twitter: https://www.newsguardtech.com/twitter-superspreaders-europe/; For a discussion of extremist mobilisation around coronavirus, see: https://time.com/5810774/extremistgroups-coronavirus/; For information about state-backed disinformation, see: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/the-kremlin-and-disinformation-about-coronavirus/
As well as: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/russia-iran-coronavirus-bioweapon/
2 Multiple reports in the last few years have documented NaturalNews’ contribution to spreading health-related disinformation in the US, including the following:https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/troll-farms-macedonia-philippines-pushed-coronavirus-disinformation-facebook-n1218376; https://www.thedailybeast.
com/how-natural-news-became-a-conspiracy-hub-rivaling-infowars; https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/quackery/mike-adams-building-alternate-reality-online; andhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/12/23/naturalnonsense-friends-dont-let-friends-read-natural-news/.
3 After Facebook’s discovery of foreign platform manipulation, the company banned all users from posting links to NaturalNews “and its sister sites” across the entirety ofthe site on May 19. See also: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/troll-farms-macedonia-philippines-pushed-coronavirus-disinformation-facebook-n1218376
4 For this research we used social media analytics tool CrowdTangle: https://www.crowdtangle.com/.
The platform queries all posts from Facebook that are “made by a public page, group, or (possibly) verified public person, who has ever (since 2014) had more than 110,000
likes, OR has ever been added to a CrowdTangle list by anyone, AND are posted without the poster aiming at a particular audience using Facebook targeting and gating
tools (eg. age-gating for alcohol pages, geo-gating if the content has country rights restrictions, targeting to women, etc.). There are no explicit restrictions on language
or country.” More information is available at https://help.crowdtangle.com/en/articles/3213537-crowdtangle-codebook.
In this instance, we queried the CrowdTangle API for posts from public Facebook groups and pages containing links to NaturalNews.com or any of its 56 affiliated domains
identified by NewsGuard. The search was limited to posts from January 1 – March 25, 2020.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

Key Findings• ISD’s investigation has identified a collectionof 496 active and inactive domains whichappear to be linked to NaturalNews and its
founders. These are used to host violent
and extremist material, as well as healthdisinformation and conspiracy theories:
To our knowledge, this collection of domains
has been registered as far back as 1996, with apeak in the volume of registrations occurringin 2015. This network appears to have been
set up by four domain registrants with names
matching those of NaturalNews’ online assets
or associated corporate entities − Webseed,
Healthranger, Truth Publishing International Ltd.,and Truthpublishing.
• Despite being banned from Facebook in2019 and again in 2020, following research
published by Avaaz, NaturalNews andits affiliated domains are used to sharedisinformation across the platform on avariety of topics including COVID-19 and theGeorge Floyd protests:
ISD found a total of 18,032 links to NaturalNewsaffiliated websites that were shared in publicFacebook groups and pages between 1
January-25 March 2020.
• The posts containing links to NaturalNewsaffiliated domains generated a large
number of interactions on Facebook: From
1 January-25 March 2020, we measured a totalof 562,193 interactions on posts containing
links from NaturalNews-affiliated domains. This
includes: 109,862 likes, 327,841 shares, and33,725 comments. The websites connected to
NaturalNews continue to receive hundreds ofthousands of interactions on public Facebook
pages and groups alone, despite Facebook’s
removal of the NaturalNews page in June2019 and banning of outbound links to the
NaturalNews site in May 2020.

• Mike Adams – the founder of NaturalNews– also owns websites promoting right-wing,hyper-partisan content and conspiracy
theories: Adams has expanded his network ofwebsites to include domains promoting violent
and extremist content, as well as conspiracy
theories unrelated to health. This content
appears to be aimed at individuals engaged
with anti-government, militia, and “prepper”
ideologies. NaturalNews content shared on
Facebook may be acting as a gateway into thisnetwork of extremist websites and narratives.
• The groups and pages sharing the
NaturalNews network content have varied
ideological backgrounds and are not limited
to right-wing extremism: ISD found evidence
that 27 Black Panther5 affiliated pages fromaround the world shared the same link to a story
hosted on dangerousmedicine.com, claiming
to expose a governmental conspiracy to kidnap
children for medical experiments. We found thatthe administrator of these pages used a posting
app to share the same content with regionaland specialist Facebook pages belonging to theBlack Panthers. It is also important to note that
the New Black Panther Party is recognised as anextremist organisation by the Southern Poverty
Law Center (SPLC).
• The corporate assets of NaturalNews andits founders appear to be substantial: ISD’s
research identified 21 current and historicalentities linked to NaturalNews and its founders,incorporated back as far as January 1990 and as
recently as February 2018. The majority of thesecompanies are domiciled in domestic tax havens
such as Wyoming, Delaware, Texas, and Nevada.
None of the registered addresses listed on
official corporate documentation for these 21
companies appears to link back to a brick-andmortar office, retail location, or warehouse.

5 The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by students Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. It was a revolutionaryorganization blending black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense. The New Black Panther Party (NBPP) is a black nationalist organization founded in 1989 in
Dallas, Texas. It is not an official successor to the BPP.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

Glossary
Conspiracy Theory: US political scientist andacademic Joseph Uscinski defines conspiracy
theories as an: “explanation of past, ongoing, or
future events or circumstances that cites as a maincausal factor a small group of powerful persons […]acting in secret for their own benefit and against thecommon good”.
Disinformation: In line with Wardle and Derakshan,
ISD defines disinformation as false informationthat is deliberately created or disseminated withthe express purpose to cause harm. Producers of
disinformation typically have political, financial,
psychological or social motivations.6
Extremism: ISD defines extremism as “theadvocacy of a system of belief that posits
the superiority and dominance of one ‘in-group’over all ‘out-groups’, propagating
a dehumanising ‘othering’ mindset that is
antithetical to the universal applicationof human rights. Extremist groups advocate,through explicit and more subtle means,a systemic change in society that reflects their world
view.”
Fact-Checking: Using non-profit tackling
misinformation First Draft’s definition, ISD
characterises fact-checking as: “the process ofdetermining the truthfulness and accuracy ofofficial, published information such as politicians’
statements and news reports”.7
Far Right: In line with Dutch political scientist andfar-right expert Cas Mudde, ISD defines the far
right as groups and individuals exhibiting at least
three of the following five features: nationalism,
racism, xenophobia, antidemocracy or strong state
advocacy.
Domestic Tax Havens: In line with the Tax Justice
Network’s Financial Secrecy Index 2020 , ISD’s use of
the term ‘domestic tax havens’ in this report refers to
US states which are subject to low corporate income
tax rates, high levels of financial secrecy, and/or lax
regulations for setting up shell companies.

6 Council of Europe, Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making (2017), https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-towardan-interdisciplinary-framework-for-researc/168076277c
7 Medium, Information disorder, part 1: the essential glossary (9 July 2018), https://medium.com/1st-draft/information-disorder-part-1-the-essential-glossary19953c544fe3.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

Background
ISD’s digital analysis unit researches to understandthe nature, scale, and perpetrators behind theproliferation of disinformation and weaponised
hate online using data analytics, open-source
intelligence (OSINT), and ethnographic research.
In the initial weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, ISD
began an investigation into a network of websites
hosting apparent health misinformation andextremist content, the focal point of which appears
to be a prominent pseudoscience site, naturalnews.
com.8 NaturalNews has generated a previous
discussion among disinformation researchers,
having recently been recognised as a prolificpeddler of health disinformation and both medical
and non-medical conspiracy theories.
A March 2020 investigation by website ranking
tool NewsGuard9 recognised NaturalNews and its
affiliates as a central player in the promotion ofhealth disinformation around COVID-19 in the US,
listing 56 domains connected to the organisation.
ISD used data analytics and OSINT to better
understand the scale and level of engagement of
this network of sites on social media and the wider
web. During this initial investigation, ISD researchers
noted links to domains sharing NaturalNewsaffiliated content that was not included in the
NewsGuard list. This has become a continuing
thread of research both at ISD and elsewhere. Most
recently, in May 2020, NBC News reported on new
research done by Avaaz into the suspicious activityof the Facebook groups and pages most active inposing NaturalNews content.10 ISD’s investigations
into the NaturalNews network have been constantly
evolving to respond to these new developments.
NaturalNews claims to be a “science-based natural
health advocacy organisation” that promotes
alternative medicine and exposes “science gonebad.”11 NaturalNews’ primary website, naturalnews.
com, lists the following as examples of subjects
the organisation covers: the Agent Orange andThalidomide chemicals, and “the presence ofhidden cancer viruses in polio vaccines.”12 Amongthe testimonials for NaturalNews and its founder are
two quotes from radio show InfoWars host Jones.13
The website was first created in 2003 under thename NewsTarget, a domain that still exists andappears to post articles identical to those shared on
NaturalNews.14
In June 2019, Facebook reportedly removed
NaturalNews’ primary page from its platform.15
NaturalNews had also been removed from Twitter,YouTube, Pinterest, Google News and Apple, before
Facebook’s decision.16 At the time of its removal,
NaturalNews’ primary Facebook page had morethan 3 million followers.17 The takedown followed
the publishing of a Daily Beast article outlining
NaturalNews’ transition from creating apparent
health-related content to conspiracy theories thatare commonly engaged with by far-right actors.
Facebook officially cited “spam” as the reason
for the page’s removal.18 This caused both Adams
and Jones to liken Mark Zuckerberg and the otherowners of large social media platforms to Hitler,
Stalin, and other dictators.19
In late May 2020, Facebook banned posts withlinks to NaturalNews.com, NewsTarget.com, andBrighteon.com, all of which appear to be owned andrun by NaturalNews and its founders.20 This secondand more widespread ban of NaturalNews-related
content came after Facebook found that pages
posting links to these three websites were exhibiting“spammy and abusive behaviour” and “relied oncontent farms in Macedonia and the Philippines”.21

8 ISD defines extremism as: “the advocacy of a system of belief that posits the superiority and dominance of one ‘in-group’ over all ‘out-groups’, propagating adehumanising ‘othering’ mindset that is antithetical to the universal application of human rights”. See Glossary for the full definition.
9 NewsGuard is a browser extension created by NewsGuard Technologies, which label online news sources according to their level of trustworthiness.
10 NBC News, Troll farms from North Macedonia and the Philippines pushed coronavirus disinformation on Facebook (29 May 2020), https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/
tech-news/troll-farms-macedonia-philippines-pushed-coronavirus-disinformation-facebook-n1218376.
11 NaturalNews, https://www.naturalnews.com/About.html
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 NewsGuard, https://www.newsguardtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NaturalNews.com-label.pdf
15 The Daily Beast, Facebook removes conspiracy site NaturalNews (20 January 2020), https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-removes-conspiracy-site-natural-news.
16 Advance Local, Facebook removes health conspiracy site NaturalNews (10 June 2019, https://www.al.com/news/2019/06/facebook-removes-health-conspiracysite-natural-news.html.
17 The Daily Beast, Facebook removes conspiracy site NaturalNews (20 January 2020), https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-removes-conspiracy-site-natural-news.
18 Gizmodo, Facebook says NaturalNews got banned for spam, not for spreading health misinformation and hate (6 November 2019), https://gizmodo.com/facebooksays-natural-news-got-banned-for-spam-not-for-1835404239.
19 InfoWars, Facebook bans NaturalNews — health ranger responds with message for humanity (9 June 2019), https://www.infowars.com/facebook-bans-natural-newshealth-ranger-responds-with-message-for-humanity/.
20 NBC News, Troll farms from North Macedonia and the Philippines pushed coronavirus disinformation on Facebook (29 May 2020), https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/
tech-news/troll-farms-macedonia-philippines-pushed-coronavirus-disinformation-facebook-n1218376.
21 Ibid.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

ISD investigated these international links while
analysing how NaturalNews content is shared on
Facebook by public groups and pages hosted aroundthe world (see page 16 of this report). Researchersat Avaaz, quoted in a recent NBC article referencing
the ban, explained NaturalNews had navigated theinitial June 2019 ban “by utilising an entire universeof pages… pushing disinformation”.22 Facebook has
since removed what ISD assesses were the mostactive pages posting links to NaturalNews, all ofwhich used official NaturalNews-branded coverphotos (see Fig. 5 on page 9 of this report).

ISD’s investigation is comprised of two parts:
the first is an initial analysis of 56 NaturalNewsaffiliated domains, which were publicly identified
by the internet trust tool NewsGuard for spreading
disinformation about COVID-19 on public Facebook
pages. This work was undertaken to analyse theextent of NaturalNews’ impact on and infiltration
into Facebook audiences despite its page being
banned from the platform in June 2019. ISD intended
to explore the scale and nature of NaturalNews’presence on Facebook, as well as how it has avoided
its ban on the platform over the past year.

The removal of the pages associated with
NaturalNews will help to diminish the number oflinks shared on the platform, however, Facebook
has only responded to the tip of the iceberg. ISD
researchers performed a sense check on the banof the sharing of NaturalNews links by attempting
to post various articles from NaturalNews on aproxy Facebook account’s newsfeed. While links
directly from the three banned sites are blocked,
it is still possible to post links to NaturalNews
content through third-party news applications likenewsbreak.com. Moreover, many of what appear
to be the most active Facebook public groups
and pages sharing links to NaturalNews content
and related domains remain active. The findings
below suggest the existence of a vast networkof NaturalNews-affiliated domains. This sizeable
online empire makes it possible for the voice of
NaturalNews and its founder to continue to bepresent on the platform.

Relying on OSINT collection and analysis, thesecond part of ISD’s investigation sought tounderstand the scale of NaturalNews’ online
presence and its business assets. This included
identifying and analysing what appears to be a
network of more than 400 domains linked to
NaturalNews and its founders, some of whichappear to promote extremist content anddisinformation. Concurrently, ISD conductedbusiness intelligence research focused on mappingout US-based corporate entities which appear to
be linked to NaturalNews and its founders. This
research identified 21 current and historical entities
linked to NaturalNews and Mike and Sheh Adams,
incorporated as back as far as January 1990 and as
recently as February 2018.

22 Ibid.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

Scope, Methodology,
and Limitations
Part 1: Analysis of NaturalNews’ presence
on Facebook
For our initial investigation, ISD conducted thefollowing English-language research procedures
and analyses:
1. We queried the CrowdTangle API for posts frompublic Facebook groups and pages containing
links to naturalnews.com or any of its 56
affiliated domains identified by NewsGuard (seeAppendix). The search was limited to posts from
1 January-25 March 2020.
2. Any additional, publicly available informationfrom Facebook – page/group creation date,location of page/group administrators etc –was collected through manual, ethnographic
research.
3. Using the data collected in steps 1 and 2 above,
ISD analysts calculated the sharing patterns of
NaturalNews links on Facebook throughout ourperiod of analysis, including the volume of posts
over time, the most frequently shared links, themost active Facebook groups/pages sharing
NaturalNews sources and the interactions data
for each post. This was done by aggregating
the number of likes, shares, comments andreactions (“love”, “favourite”, “haha”, “wow”,“angry”, “sad”, “thankful”) received by each post.
4. Once the most frequently shared links had been
identified, we assessed the validity of claims
made in each article. This was done to gain adetailed understanding of the content sharedby NaturalNews-affiliated domains, as well as
to fact-check these links. Fact-checking ofclaims made in NaturalNews articles relied ona review of research produced by professional
fact-checking organisations including Full Fact,
Snopes, and AFP (Agence France-Presse).

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5. After the completion of the below-detailed
OSINT procedures, during the week of 1-7
June 2020, ISD researchers assessed Facebook
sharing patterns of links related to a broader
network of 496 domains which appear to belinked to NaturalNews. For consistency, ISD
used CrowdTangle to search for Facebook posts
containing the additional 496 domains overthe same period as the original investigation,
1 January-25 March 2020. The objective of thisexercise was to develop a clearer understandingof the extent to which potential NaturalNewsaffiliated domains are shared on Facebook,highlighting lesser-known and less active
domains which may be assisting NaturalNews
in evading moderator detection following
Facebook’s 2019 and 2020 bans of NaturalNews
content.
Our initial investigation was subject to the following
limitations:6. While data collected from CrowdTangle enabled
ISD to analyse engagement as noted above,
it should also be noted that our analysis may
not constitute the totality of user engagementon the platform with a given piece of content.
CrowdTangle only includes data from public
pages and groups, and only for posts madeby their administrators. Any accounts, pages
or groups that have privacy settings enabledor any type of gating (i.e. age-gating or geogating) cannot be added to the database, nor
is any individual user-level data included in thisanalysis.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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Part 2 – OSINT Investigation into
the NaturalNews network
For the second part of our investigation, which took
place from 27 April-29 May 2020, ISD conducted
the following English-language research procedures
and analyses:
1. We conducted an open-source review of online
media to identify historical articles and existing
research referencing NaturalNews and its
founder Adams. Searches were conducted usingmajor search engines.23
2. We conducted searches of third-party domain
registries and WHOIS lookups using the namesof NaturalNews-related entities as registrant
name search terms.24 The registrant names ISD
searched included: Webseed, Healthranger,
Truth Publishing International Ltd., andTruthpublishing. These registrant names
were selected based on previous research
conducted by the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP)in NaturalNews.25 GLP is a US-based non-profit
organisation focused on promoting scientific
literacy and advocating for transparency inscientific research.26
3. We conducted open-source businessintelligence research using the same major
search engines noted in step 1, as well as
searches of third-party companies’ databases.27
Based on results from the search engines anddatabases, entity name searches were thenconducted in the official corporate registriesof the US states of Wyoming, Texas, Nevada,
Arizona, New York, and Delaware.28
4. Reverse address searches via theaforementioned major search engines wereconducted using the addresses of entities
identified in the above official corporate
registries. The focus of these searches was

to identify additional entities domiciled at
the same locations which may be related to
NaturalNews. Google Earth Pro and Google
Streetview were then used (where possible) to
determine if the addresses searched were linked
to brick-and-mortar offices, retail locations, or
warehouses.29 30
5. Business intelligence findings were thenvisualised using Maltego CE/CaseFile, a freeversion of the link analysis software Maltego.31
This visualisation allowed ISD analysts tomore efficiently search for overlap between
apparent NaturalNews-affiliated corporate
entities’ officers, directors, registered agents,
shareholders, and addresses.32
The second part of our investigation was subject tothe following limitations:
6. ISD’s OSINT research relied only on publicly
available information. Access to information
is limited by the privacy settings of each page,site, domain, network, or database. For example,
paywalled search engines, news media sources,domain registries, WHOIS lookups, or corporate
databases were not accessible to ISD except
where otherwise explicitly noted.
7. ISD’s research was conducted on a point-in-timebasis and based on identifying information
developed by ISD. As such, the results should
not be considered comprehensive.
8. For content in languages other than English,
ISD’s review and analysis depended onmachine translation provided by each of thetools used (e.g. Google Translate). We assume
no responsibility for the accuracy of suchtranslations.

23 https://www.google.com; https://www.bing.com; https://search.yahoo.com/web/advanced; https://yandex.com; and https://duckduckgo.com.
24 https://viewdns.info/; http://whois.domaintools.com/; https://dnslytics.com/; and https://builtwith.com/.
25 Genetic Literacy Project, https://geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/mike-adams-natural-news-everyones-favorite-uber-quack-1-anti-science-website/.
26 Ibid, https://geneticliteracyproject.org/mission-financials-governorship/.
27 https://opencorporates.com; https://aleph.occrp.org; https://www.corporationwiki.com; and https://www.zoominfo.com/companies-search/location-usa.
28 https://wyobiz.wyo.gov/Business/FilingSearch.aspx; https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/; https://esos.nv.gov/EntitySearch/OnlineEntitySearch; https://ecorp.azcc.
gov/EntitySearch/Index; https://www.dos.ny.gov/corps/bus_entity_search.html; and https://icis.corp.delaware.gov/ecorp/entitysearch/namesearch.aspx.
29 Google Earth, https://www.google.com/earth/versions.
30 Google Maps, https://www.google.ca/streetview/.
31 Maltego, https://www.maltego.com/products/.
32 It should be noted that in many US states corporate entities are not required to disclose details related to shareholder structure, including but not limited to the dateof share purchases/sales/transfers, the names or other personally identifiable details of shareholders, shareholding percentages, or total number of shares.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

Part 1: Analysis of NaturalNews’presence on Facebook
Scale of the NaturalNews network
on Facebook

Interactions over time

From 1 January-25 March 2020, there were a total of
17,344 links to the 56 Natura lNews-affiliated sites
identified by NewsGuard, shared on public Facebook
groups and pages.

Post volume over time
Facebook posts with links to these NaturalNews
sites have decreased slightly since mid-January, themonth with the most links − 7,399. February saw thesecond-highest amount − 5,177, followed by March− 4,768.
The day with the single most posts containing
NaturalNews-affiliated links was 17 January, totalling
337. The most shared link on this day was a story
from naturalnews.com entitled, “BREAKING:
Democrats conspiring to stage false flag bloodshed
on January 2020 in Virginia – ‘Charlottesville 2.0’
– in order to ignite a civil war and mass chaos”.33
Despite having nothing to do with natural or
alternative health, the author of the story is “HealthRanger”(aka Adams). The content of this article
and its false claims are discussed in detail in the
appendices, under fact-checking. The story wasshared 90 times on 17 January by 81 different
Facebook groups and pages.

ISD measured the volume of interaction for thedomains in our dataset (see Appendix), including
the number of likes, shares, and comments, as well
as reactions like sad, angry, and love, generated byeach. These numbers help us to understand how
Facebook users engaged with the content producedby the domains in the NaturalNews network. A highnumber of likes, shares, and comments suggeststhat users were not only exposed to these links,
but also that they were interested enough to react,comment on, or share these with their networkof Facebook friends. The intent of that sharing orreaction cannot be determined through quantitative
research.
The links to the 56 NaturalNews-affiliated domains
in our data received a combined total of 109,862
likes, 327,841 shares, and 33,725 comments.
naturalnews.com and newstarget.com, the twomost linked to domains in the NewsGuard list,
received 65,836 and 42,328 likes respectively.

Fig. 1. Mentions of naturalnews.com and the 56 affiliate domainnames by public Facebook pages or groups.

33 NaturalNews, BREAKING: Democrats conspiring to stage false flag bloodshed on Jan. 20th in Virginia – “Charlottesville 2.0” – in order to ignite a civil war and masschaos (16 January 2020), https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-16-democrats-conspiring-to-stage-false-flag-bloodshed-charlottesville-2-virginia.html.

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Domain

Likes

SharesComments

Reactions

Total Interactions

naturalnews.com

65,836203,113

20,612

38,535

328,096

newstarget.com

42,328122,038

12,52429,616

206,506

science.news

673

1,116

273

120

2,182

vaccines.news

256

587

92

311

1,246

herbs.news

455

497

9

49

1,010

pandemic.news

109

117

74

96

396

outbreak.news

56

84

29

46

215

medicine.news

47

71

30

44

203

eugenics.news

49

92

21

40

202

vaccinedamage.news

19

55

37

90

201

vaccineinjurynews.com

20

64

10

19

113

tyranny.news

0

0

11

5

16

factcheck.news

1

6

2

2

11

cdc.news

7

0

1

0

8

extinction.news

2

0

0

1

3

shtf.news

3

0

0

0

3

naturalcures.news

1

1

0

0

2

depopulation.news

0

0

0

0

0

health.news

0

0

0

0

0

scienceclowns.com

0

0

0

0

0

Total

109,862

327,841

33,72568,974

540,413*Reactions include: sad, favourite, haha, love, wow, angry.
Table 1. Interactions with NaturalNews-affiliated domains.

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Content of NaturalNews network on Facebook
Throughout the monitoring period, the most linked to domain in the NaturalNews network with 10,931
posts was naturalnews.com itself, followed by newstarget.com with 4,256. Each of the 10 most shared
articles come from these two domains (see Table 2). The following section discusses the general themes
found in the 10 most-shared articles from NaturalNews domains; also ISD researchers performed a factcheck on each source, using independent fact-checking sites (see Appendix).
Posts

DomainDate Published

Article Headline

Interactions
100,558

241

NaturalNews

12/07/2019

Climate change hoax COLLAPSES as new science finds
human activity has virtually zero impact on global
temperatures

154

News Target

28/11/2016

The disturbing history of George Soros that every
American should know

31,293120

NaturalNews

16/01/2020

BREAKING: Democrats conspiring to stage false flag
bloodshed on Jan. 20th in Virginia – “Charlottesville 2.0”
– in order to ignite a civil war and mass chaos

2,526

115

News Target

06/05/2018

Homeschooling skyrockets as more parents get fed up
with Left-wing social engineering and violence in publicschools

52,83075

NaturalNews

02/13/2019

VACCINE BOMBSHELL as U.N. health experts admit toxic
vaccine ingredients are harming children worldwide –see video, transcript

2,819

69

NaturalNews

03/12/2019

5G radiation causes BEHAVIOR changes in humans,causes ion potentiation poisoning of brain cells, leading
to mass insanity

3,689

66

NaturalNews

03/01/2020

Brighteon Films posts new 5G mini-documentary thatwarns humanity about the imminent danger of 5G cell
towers563

65

NaturalNews

02/02/2020

New evidence emerges: Coronavirus “bioweapon”
might have been a Chinese vaccine experiment gonewrong… genes contain “pShuttle-SN” sequences,proving laboratory origin

480

65

NaturalNews

02/01/2020

UN hiring “disarmament officers” to conduct “field
missions” in New York as UN occupation plan for
America goes LIVE

2,365

64

NaturalNews

24/01/2020

New science proves that vaccines SPREAD infectious
disease, causing up to 15 times MORE infections among
fully vaccinated children

4

Table 2. Most shared stories from NaturalNews-affiliated domains.

According to the headlines, five of the top 10 stories from the 56 NaturalNews-affiliated domains are related
to health. This includes the only story about COVID-19, which was the eight most shared link in our data.
The article, from NaturalNews, suggests that the novel coronavirus originated from a Chinese “vaccine
experiment” (see Fig. 2). Here, NaturalNews alleges COVID-19 is the result of human experimentation
with viruses and vaccines and that this fact is being silenced by a larger conspiracy within the scientificcommunity, which “murders” individuals who deviate from their established narratives. According toNaturalNews, this conspiracy also includes big tech companies that ban sources claiming to expose theseso-called “truths”. The article also references a common anti-vaccine conspiracy trope, indicating: “being
vaccinated with this particular strain of coronavirus causes individuals to be more easily killed by thecommon cold and other non-pandemic coronavirus strains that are circulating in the wild”.34

34 NaturalNews, Irrefutable: The coronavirus was engineered by scientists in a lab using well documented genetic engineering vectors that leave behind a “fingerprint” (3February 2020), https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-02-03-the-coronavirus-was-engineered-by-scientists-in-a-lab.html.

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Fig. 2. Exert from NaturalNews article published 02/02/2020 containing Coronavirus origin conspiracy theories

The remaining health-focused articles include two that claim to prove the harm caused by vaccines andtwo others that discuss the impacts of 5G wireless technology on human physical and mental health. While
half of the most-shared articles engage with health-related disinformation and conspiracy theories, thefive remaining stories – including the four most shared articles – go beyond this, speaking to narratives
commonly shared by far-right actors.
The most-shared story in our data is about climate change, arguing that “human activity has virtually zero
impact on global temperatures.”35 The second most-shared story focuses on demonising the billionaire
philanthropist George Soros, speaking to a common trope in far-right conspiracy theories across Europe
and the US.36 The story claims that Soros invested in the development of a Center for Disease Control andPrevention (CDC)-patented strain of Ebola.37 Similarly, the third and fourth most popular stories highlighta series of alleged plots orchestrated by “the Left” or the US Democratic Party, claiming that it provokes
violence to achieve its goals. For example, the third most-shared story engages with many far-right
tropes, including Antifa (US anti-fascist political movement) violence and the idea that the left-controlled“mainstream media” promotes “fake news”. The final paragraph of the article declares that “the time hascome to stand up against tyranny and defeat it,” while reminding Americans of their rights as laid out in theSecond Amendment (See Fig. 3. and 4.).

Fig. 3. Exert from NaturalNews article published 16/01/2020 containing allegations against the US Democrats

Fig. 4. Second exert from NaturalNews article published 16/01/2020, calling for action against the Democrats and their supporters
35 NaturalNews, Climate change hoax collapses as new science finds human activity has virtually zero impact on global temperatures (12 July 2019), https://www.
naturalnews.com/2019-07-12-climate-change-hoax-collapses-new-science-cloud-cover.html.
36 See ISD’ investigation George Soros conspiracy theories for Buzzfeed: https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-contributes-george-soros-conspiracy-theories-research-forbuzzfeed-news/.
37 News Target, The disturbing history of George Soros that every American should know (28 November 2016), https://www.newstarget.com/2016-11-28-thedisturbing-history-of-george-soros-that-every-american-should-know.html?fbclid=IwAR0ND8crGPU65NCTypDVXmh5mLqAC_HtizvKsDmb94_AH6TDTQlSKfJYVkA.

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Sharing Patterns of the NaturalNews network on Facebook
We identified 15 Facebook groups and pages – seven public pages and eight public groups – which sharedlinks to NaturalNews-affiliated domains more than 50 times in the period of the study. These 15 groups andpages shared a combined total of 9,097 links and account for 52% of the links shared during our period ofanalysis. Similar to the content of the most-shared stories, the top 15 active groups/pages include both
health-focused and those dedicated to the discussion of broader and far-right conspiracy theories. Eightof the top 15 groups/pages identify as being health-related, with a specific focus on alternative health.
The remaining most active groups/pages are associated with various conspiracy theories pushed by theconservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh, the Manila Central University and other internationallybased groups outside of the US (see Table 3).
# of sharesGroup/ Page

Name

2,167

Page

No Fluoride **

2,014

Page

GMO Dangers **

1,668

Page

newstarget.com **

1,567

Page

Manila Central University Graduates **

903

Page

Amazing Cures **

128

Page

Toxic Food

94

Public Group

Agenda 21: Depopulation, Monsanto, Chemtrails and Vaccines (by N.T.O)

93

Public GroupDR. MEHMET OZ

76

Public GroupHQ Healing

75

Public Group

Orgiva Massive

67

Page

Health Liberty

66

Public Group

Lopunajat toteutuu

65

Public GroupYou Cant Handle These Truths

61

Public Group

CORONA VIRUS COVID19 News Group+

53

Public GroupThe Official Rush Limbaugh Facebook Group** these pages were unable to be accessed by ISD as of 27/05/2020 +as of 09/05/2020 this group changed from public to private and was renamed “C the OVID SEESHEEP”

Table 3. 15 most active sharers of NaturalNews-affiliated links.

The page that recorded the highest number of shares of NaturalNews-affiliated domains was No Fluoride
with 2,167 links, followed by GMO Dangers with 2,014. Three of the top five most active pages – No
Fluoride, GMO Dangers, and Amazing Cures – appear to be associated with NaturalNews, as suggestedby their use of a NaturalNews banner photo, (see Fig. 5. below). All of these pages remained active for 10
months after the NaturalNews page was banned from Facebook’s platform, but they began to be removed
as of 21 May 2020. ISD’s research into these pages was conducted from 1 January-25 March 2020, before
their removal.

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Fig. 5. Facebook pages using NaturalNews banners.

A detailed review of these pages indicates further connections to the website and its founder. All threecontain links to the website consumerwellness.org, a non-profit organisation run by Adams.38 Similarly, the“Shop Now” button on each page links to healthrangerstore.com. While healthrangerstore.com does not
explicitly mention Adams, the website’s “About Us” page indicates NaturalNews opened the Health Ranger
Store in 2012 and Adams commonly goes by the name of Health Ranger.39
While they were active, the three Facebook pages using NaturalNews banner photos had a high volume oflikes and followers, meaning content posted on these pages had the potential to reach a large audience.
Page

Followers

Likes

GMO Dangers

344,425

349,717No Fluoride

93,694

93,694

Amazing Cures

291,965

288,088

Table 4. Numbers taken from publicly available information before pages are removed.

38 Consumer Wellness Center, https://consumerwellness.org/Board.html.
39 Health Ranger Store, https://www.healthrangerstore.com/.

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International networks around NaturalNews on Facebook
Four of the most active groups/pages list their location as being outside the US and in countries where
English is not an official language. We reviewed these groups/pages to find out their connection to theEnglish-language content produced by NaturalNews and its affiliated domains.

Manila Central University Graduates
As noted on page 13, the fourth most active page linking to NaturalNews content was a page set up in May
2015, titled “Manila Central University Graduates.” This page appears to have been removed within the sametime as the above-mentioned pages (Table 4). The research was conducted into this page during April 2020.
At the time of writing, this page has 326 likes and no page administrators or moderators listed. However,
our review of the page identified a pair of Facebook accounts tagged in the page’s profile picture.40 Bothaccounts feature a series of blurry, unfocused photos, with one having posted the Manila Central University
logo multiple times. One of the two accounts claim to work at a Tokyo-based veterinary clinic specialising in
felines. While the page does include a link to Manila Central University’s official website, before its removalfrom Facebook many of its recent posts appeared to be linked to stories by NaturalNews and do not discuss
the university or its students.41

Fig. 6. Screenshot of Manila Central University Graduates Facebook page.

Fig. 7 (left) and Fig. 8 (right) Screenshots of post about COVID-19 by the Manila Central University page

40 We have not included the usernames of either of these accounts in the interest of preserving user privacy.
41 We have not been able to determine the exact date of this page’s removal. However, it appears to have occurred before this part of our investigation, which took place
between 1 January-25 March 2020.

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The page hosts a variety of content, some of which is being pulled in automatically using the freewareprogram If This Then That (IFTT) from sites such as Reddit. Alongside its promotion of NaturalNews content,
the page frequently promotes clickbait and content from mercola.com, which describes itself as a “natural
health website”. The website is led by alternative medicine proponent Joseph Mercola, who has been profiledby The Washington Post as a leading figure of the anti-vaccine movement in the US.42 Also there are posts
relating to politics in the Philippines, including links to YouTube channels and Facebook pages promoting
President Rodrigo Duterte.
Another page, Mapua Institute of Technology Graduates, may also be operated by the same group orindividual.43 There is some evidence of automation, for example through the use of IFFT.44 45 46 The pageappears to have started posting NaturalNews content in August 2018, and likewise appears to have been
removed along with the pages in table 4.47 In the examples above, there are multiple posts which conclude
with the text “Read More.”48 49 50 This may indicate the post text was copied from another source in which“Read More” functioned as a hyperlink to external content. In addition to NaturalNews, the page also shares
health-related links from mercola.com, and links to YouTube music clips.51 52

HQ Healing
The ninth most active public group was HQ Healing, which lists its location as Malaysia. The group has 6,325
members and was created in August 2017. Group members post pictures and messages about natural andalternative medicine, as well as content related to conspiracy theories.

Fig. 9. (left) Screenshot of HQ Healing’s group description
Fig. 10. (right) Screenshot of alternative health and natural remedy infographics shared on HQ Healing
42 The Washington Post, A major funder of the anti-vaccine movement has made millions selling natural health products (20 December 2019), https://www.
washingtonpost.com/investigations/2019/10/15/fdc01078-c29c-11e9-b5e4-54aa56d5b7ce_story.html.
43 Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/mapua.institute.university/?hc_ref=ART87cPFSu5iYkhw5pHGuTcf49dPfG56M255aBmHExoCKwR8_L8WcKgq2894wlc_
Mds&fref=nf&__tn__=kCH-R.
44 This may be a pay-per-post page, wherein a group or person in the Philippines is paid for boosting content, and when the page is not being used to generate revenue
the operators manually or automatically pull content from other sources in an attempt to build an audience.
45 Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/manilacentraluniversitygraduates/photos/a.917938981562028/2938316436190929/?type=3
46 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/manilacentraluniversitygraduates/photos/a.917938981562028/2507533902602520/?type=3
47 Ibid.,https://www.facebook.com/search/posts/?q=naturalnews&epa=FILTER
48 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/manilacentraluniversitygraduates/posts/3000757746613464.
49 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/manilacentraluniversitygraduates/posts/3000757523280153.
50 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/manilacentraluniversitygraduates/posts/3000757389946833.
51 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/manilacentraluniversitygraduates/posts/2992462617442977.
52 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/manilacentraluniversitygraduates/posts/2992488140773758.

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Orgiva Massive
The tenth most active international group was Orgiva Massive, created in August 2016, with more than
1,242 members.53 The group had only one moderator, an individual listing their location as Umeå, Sweden,
and educational background as a UK-based boarding school.54 As of ISD’s review, the moderator’s profile
included posts linking to right-wing hyperpartisan content and conspiracy theories, including content from
Jones’ InfoWars website.

Fig. 11. Post from InfoWars on Nick Williams’ Facebook page.

In addition to sharing articles from alternative news sites favoured by far-right actors such as Jones, thegroup’s moderator appears to maintain other connections to right-wing extremism. For example, they
appear to be friends with Kevin Mugur Galalae, a German-born Canadian citizen, author of a 2004 bookentitled Killing Us Softly, which claims to expose a conspiracy by global elites to control global population
numbers and conduct a “depopulation” policy.55

Lopunajat toteutuu
Another internationally-based group linking to NaturalNews content and domains, Lopunajat toteutuu(Finnish for “end times come true”), has 612 members and was created in September 2018.56 Both of thegroup administrators share content related to a variety of conspiracy theories: 5G, depopulation, and thebelief that well-known progressive figures are members of a satanic cult. Many of the NaturalNews articles
shared in this group appear to be posted by one of the group’s two admins. As recently as 24 April, the groupshared anti-Muslim and anti-lockdown content (see Fig. 12. and 13. below).

53 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/groups/1737136199885853/.
54 We have not included the username of this account in the interest of preserving user privacy.
55 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/kgalalae?__tn__=%2CdK*F-R&eid=ARC7vS7LNW2EqGlFP-x7xxjGWvr9_EMo1H8sGAUvLLaBPLh7shvcHLju3RG9L54ONloVyD3fzWCdXUP.
56 Lopunajat toteutuu, http://archive.vn/2i98F.

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Fig. 12. and 13. Anti-Muslim and anti-lockdown content in Lopunajat Toteutuu Facebook group.

Facebook page promotion − avoiding NaturalNews bans on Facebook
Despite Facebook’s removal of NaturalNews-affiliated pages and blocking the sharing of links fromnaturalnews.com and newstarget.com, these domains continue to have a presence on Facebook. Following
the takedown, ISD was able to identify a private group for NaturalNews supporters.
NaturalNews supporters group
This group was identified via the Amazing Cures Facebook page. The group had 390 members as of 17 April
2020 and shares both NaturalNews content and conspiracy content from other sources.57
The GMO Dangers page became an admin of the group on 27 June 2019. The Amazing Cures page wasmade an admin later on the same day. The creation of this group appears to have been a response to thebanning of NaturalNews from Facebook.
The group administrators are Adams and another account going under a female name (the Amazing Cures
Facebook page was also an administrator until it was deleted by Facebook in May 2020).58 59 The otheraccount has made two direct posts into the group. One was to share a naturalnews.com link in September
2019. The second post was made on 21 May 2020, in response to the increased crackdown by Facebook
on both NaturalNews and Brighteon links.

57 Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1739082573056887/.
58 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/NaturalNews.
59 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/chaosandorder1989.

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Fig. 14. Screenshot of administrator account post in NaturalNews supporters Facebook group.
Fig. 15. and 16. Screenshots from GMO Dangers and Amazing Cures.
Fig. 17. Post by Amazing Cures account administrator.

The most active member of the group is a Facebook account that routinely shares content from theAmazing Cures Facebook page into the group.60 This account appears to have been created in May 2016 andis linked to a Twitter account also created in May 2016. Both accounts share little or no personal content (atleast for public posts in the case of Facebook) but share many conspiracy links, in particular, Russia Todayand End Times headlines.61

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The webpages listed below (all of which had one administrator in Macedonia, in addition to USbased and unknown location administrators according to Facebook’s transparency data) were taken
down between 21-29 May 2020:• GMO Dangers: https://www.facebook.com/GMO.Dangers/ − posted naturalnews.com links, 344k+
followers, no longer active as of 29/05/2020• Amazing Cures: https://www.facebook.com/Amazing.Cures − posted naturalnews.com links, 292k+
followers, no longer active as of 29/05/2020• Food Freedom: https://www.facebook.com/Food.Freedom − posted naturalnews.com links, 21k+
followers, no longer active as of 29/05/2020• No Fluoride: https://www.facebook.com/No.Fluoride − posted naturalnews.com links, 92k+ followers,
no longer active as of 29/05/2020• Coordinated posting across all four pages: Similar but not the same time, suggests being posted by ahuman rather than automated cross-posting.

Fig. 18. Example of content shared across Facebook pages linked to NaturalNews.

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Facebook’s enforcement actions in May 2020 appear to have missed many other NaturalNews related
pages. Unlike the other pages, which were detected and banned, these pages do not link directly to the
NaturalNews domain. Instead, they link to many masking domains which promote and repost NaturalNews
content (as will be discussed in more detail below).
While these pages, created in 2015, are all currently inactive and have low numbers of followers, the factthat they have survived so far suggests that this tactic of using masking domains may be useful for avoiding
enforcement of bans.
These pages include:• Homesteading News62• Collapse News63• Bugout News64• Big Government News65• National Security News66• Cyberwar News67• Prophecy News68• Collapse News69

62 https://www.facebook.com/thehomesteadingnews/
63 https://www.facebook.com/collapsenews
64 https://www.facebook.com/bugoutDOTnews/
65 https://www.facebook.com/Big-Government-News-919392114822669
66 https://www.facebook.com/nationalsecnews/
67 https://www.facebook.com/Cyberwar-News-844562505664727
68 https://www.facebook.com/Prophecy-News-615523561920110/
69 https://www.facebook.com/collapsenews/

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Part 2: OSINT Investigation
into the NaturalNews network
How big is the network and who is behind it?
The significance of the coordinated promotion of the NaturalNews network via Facebook suggests a level ofresource and organisation behind the site and its affiliated websites, prompting ISD’s OSINT team to further
investigate the links between NaturalNews and other online assets under the same ownership. This revealeda large network of seemingly connected websites hosting extremist content, conspiracy theories and healthdisinformation, as well as systems to cross-promote such sites and content.
The Owner: Mike Adams
NaturalNews is “led by activist-turned-scientist” Adams, who, along with his business partner (and possiblewife), Sheh Lio Adams (aka Horng Lio Sheh and Sherhorn Kio Adams), has built an extensive online network
over the past three decades.70 While Sheh Adams does not have the same level of public profile as her
partner, ISD found that she is a registered practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and a former codirector of the Consumer Wellness Centre.71 72
Recent links to radical anti-government groups: Adams and the Oath Keepers
On 13 March 2020, Adams posted a link to brighteon.com (a site created and owned by Adams) on his
personal Facebook page (Fig. 19).73 The link in question leads to a video of Adams’ interview with Oath Keepers’
founder Stewart Rhodes.74 The video opens with Adams discussing the Globalists’ use of numerology to allude
to the connection between 9/11, the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the WHO. According to Adams, this isevidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has been orchestrated by the same globalists. As Rhodes begins his
interview, the two discuss the US government’s response to the pandemic, which in their view has been an
overreaction. Instead of domestic lockdown, Rhodes suggests focusing on border control and limiting thenumber of international travellers coming into the US. According to Rhodes, it would be better for the military
to be placed on the Mexican border than to be building COVID-19 hospitals.

Fig. 19. Facebook post by Mike Adams linking to brighteon.com

70 NaturalNews, https://www.naturalnews.com/About.html.
71 Consumer Wellness, https://www.consumerwellness.org/.
72 The Wyoming Secretary of State, https://wyobiz.wyo.gov/Business/FilingDetails.aspx?eFNum=122038094053107062209093116048240203053032236106.
73 Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/healthranger/brighteon-new-features-announced-by-founder-mike-adams.
74 Brighteon, https://www.brighteon.com/37c606ce-969a-4ed1-8218-c774f4b12c2f?fbclid=IwAR0Z3HYvEJIlUE0TZiSt7Ph5_D5QVjoEPHRRudZAXyFB75v8x7x7hYJSZM.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes the Oath Keepers as “one of the largest radical [antigovernment] groups in the U.S.”75 The group is made up of current and former law enforcement and military
personnel who seek to uphold and protect the Constitution. At its core, the Oath Keepers ideology “is basedon a set of baseless conspiracy theories about the federal government working to destroy the liberties ofAmericans”.76 Rhodes is himself a former member of the armed forces, a paratrooper who was honourably
discharged following an injury. After his military service, Rhodes attended law school at Yale, graduating in
2004. He founded the Oath Keepers five years later in 2009.77
As purveyors of anti-government conspiracies, Adams and Rhodes belong to the same community of farright conspiracy theorists, which also includes the likes of Jones. Both men have been featured on Jones’
InfoWars since as early as 2012.78 In 2013, Adams reached out to anti-government protestors – including
the Oath Keepers – to warn them of an Obama-led crackdown on the movement, which would include“a mass of kill orders.”79 Similarly, in 2017, a video made by Adams claimed that together, the Women’sMarch on Washington and the Refuse Fascism protests were a coup that aimed to disrupt Donald Trump’s
inauguration, incite a popular uprising, and take over the White House.80 This video was promoted by the
Oath Keepers online, but the group’s official website mentions Adams as early as 2015.81

The NaturalNews website network – size and scope
ISD’s investigation identified a collection of 496 domains (in addition to the 56 domains identified by
NewsGuard) which may be linked to NaturalNews and its founders. Many of the domains are now expiredor parked. This collection of domains appears to have been registered as far back as 1996, with a peak inthe volume of registrations occurring in 2015 (see Fig. 20.). This network appears to have been set up by
four domain registrants with names matching those of NaturalNews online assets or associated corporate
entities: Webseed, Healthranger, Truth Publishing International Ltd., and simply Truthpublishing. 82 83
Analysis shows:• 52 domains were registered using the registrant name Healthranger• 72 domains were registered using the registrant name Truthpublishing• 92 domains were registered using the registrant name Truth Publishing International Ltd.
• 420 domains were registered using the registrant name Webseed.
Specific days appear to have featured higher volumes of domain registrations:• 50 of the 52 domains set up by Healthranger and 220 of the 420 domains set up by Webseed appear tohave been registered on 15 July 2015.
• 60 of the 72 domains set up by Truthpublishing appear to have been registered on 23 March 2014.

75 Southern Poverty Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/oath-keepers.
76 The Daily Beast, The Oath Keepers providing volunteer security at Trump’s Minneapolis rally are itching for a civil war (11 October 2019), https://www.thedailybeast.
com/the-oath-keepers-providing-volunteer-security-at-trumps-minneapolis-rally-are-itching-for-a-civil-war?ref=scroll.
77 Ibid.
78 Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/naturalnews/mike-adams-health-ranger-infowars-nightly-news?in=naturalnews/sets/info-wars and https://www.infowars.
com/the-injustice-system-in-america-with-stewart-rhodes/.
79 Pg. 339, Neiwert. “Alt-America: the rise of the radical right in the age of Trump”.
80 Ibid.
81 Oath Keepers, Prepping our bodies for winter with Mike Adams of NaturalNews (30 November 2015), https://oathkeepers.org/2015/11/prepping-our-bodies-forwinter-with-mike-adams-of-natural-news/.
82 See below: Business intelligence research into corporate entities linked to NaturalNews for additional details.
83 Viewdnsinfo, https://viewdns.info/reversewhois/?q=Truth+Publishing+International+Ltd.; https://viewdns.info/reversewhois/?q=Healthranger; https://viewdns.info/
reversewhois/?q=Truthpublishing; and https://viewdns.info/reversewhois/?q=Webseed.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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Fig. 20. Domains registered between 1996–2020

Around 2015, NaturalNews appears to have begun registering domains on the top-level domain (TLD)“.news” (for example collapse.news, biggovernment.news). Some of these domains appear to have beenaccompanied by associated Facebook pages, a practice which appears to have since fallen off. These
Facebook pages, which are also noted above, were how these news domains were initially identified:• Homesteading News84• Collapse News85• Bugout News86• Big Government News87• National Security News88• Cyberwar News89• Prophecy News90.
The .news domains re-post NaturalNews articles, which in some cases is hosted on the domain itself andin others simply redirects readers to naturalnews.com, and run advertisements for NaturalNews products.
The evidence that these domains are part of the NaturalNews operation is further supported by their use ofwebseed.com and alternativenews.com scripts.

84 https://www.facebook.com/thehomesteadingnews/
85 https://www.facebook.com/collapsenews
86 https://www.facebook.com/bugoutDOTnews/
87 https://www.facebook.com/Big-Government-News-919392114822669
88 https://www.facebook.com/nationalsecnews/
89 https://www.facebook.com/Cyberwar-News-844562505664727
90 https://www.facebook.com/Prophecy-News-615523561920110/

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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Fig. 21. and Fig. 22. Banner on .news domain directing readers towards pandemic.news.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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The .news domains are very simple and almost
identical to one another. Many link to one another ingroups which appear to be themed to appeal to thesame audiences. For example, nationalsecurity.news
links to californiacollapse.news, greatertexan.com,
militarytech.news, migrants.news, openborders.
news and invasionusa.news.91
From a marketing perspective, using domains inthis way kills two birds with one stone: it directs
readers towards content they may find engaging,and siloes them from content which may drive themaway from NaturalNews’ domains. It is possible that,for example, a reader interested in NaturalNews’
holistic health articles might be alienated by its
pro-gun content or vice versa. This method ofusing relatively cheap and simple websites allows
for demographic segmentation without the needfor methods such as algorithmic content delivery,
which would likely be more expensive.
This practice of interlinking domains makes it
possible to leapfrog from identifying one domain to
identifying multiple others. As of 1 May 2020, ISD’s
investigation identified 49 .news domains whichappear to be tailored towards highly politicisedright-wing content. These domains underscorethe fact that NaturalNews’ operation is rooted inpolitical and social influence as much as it is inpromoting questionable health advice.

In February 2020, during the early days of the
COVID-19 global pandemic, one of the .news
domains, pandemic.news, appears to have beensignificantly redeveloped and expanded to becomea hub for coronavirus-related NaturalNews content.
Yellow banners on other .news domains direct
readers towards pandemic.news (as visible above
in Fig. 21). In addition to articles, the pandemic.
news homepage now features Adams’ podcast,
HealthRanger videos hosted on Webseed’s video
platform Brighteon, and links to real US state healthauthorities. It is still just a landing domain, however,and the articles appear to redirect to naturalnews.
com.
As the Adams network of websites has expanded,it has grown to include domains that have noapparent link to health topics, some of which
promote violence and host extremist content. A
list of these, including both active and inactive
domains, can be found in the appendix of thisreport. Also, another set of specific domains
appear to be tailored for the current COVID-19
crisis, including pandemic.news and infections.
news. These domains are advertised on other
NaturalNews-linked sites, as well as being promoted
on Facebook.92

91 There are a small number of .com domains in addition to the .news domains.
92 Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/robin.klar.lent/posts/10218611145242528.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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NaturalNews on Facebook – Investigation II
Post volume over time
ISD researchers employed the same methodology used for the 56 NewsGuard domains to analyse how links
to these newly identified domains have been shared Facebook. We searched for Facebook posts includingthese domains from 1 January-25 March 2020. This search returned 751 posts made to public groups andpages on Facebook. While this number seems low, in comparison to the 17,344 posts found containing theoriginal 56 domains, this investigation helps to illustrate the true reach of Adam’s NaturalNews network.
In addition, this follow-up analysis focuses on older, lesser-known, and less active NaturalNews-affiliateddomains, meaning that this list, while larger, is also likely to contain a greater amount of inactive websites –many of which are not relevant to news or current events.
The month with the most posts containing links to our list of additional domains was March, with 323 posts,
followed by February with 250, and January with 178.

Fig. 23. Number of Facebook posts per month containing links to newly identified, NaturalNews affiliated domains

Post interactions over time
The 751 posts in our data generated a total of 21,780 interactions including: likes, shares, comments, andreactions. This includes 1,917 comments and 9,373 shares (See Table 6.). The single most popular post
generated 3,513 interactions. This post links to the story from climate.news about carbon dioxide greening
the earth, which was the third most-shared link in our data. It was shared on the group Rural Resistance, apublic group dedicated to the Australian Bush.93
Four of the 10 most active linkers appeared in our original investigation into the 56 domains flagged by
NewsGuard – No Fluoride, GMO Dangers, Amazing Cures, and DR. MEHMET OZ (see Table 5). Six of the 10 are
public groups, while the remaining four are pages. The most active linkers in our data only account for 370
posts or 49% of the total posts containing the newly identified NaturalNews-affiliated domains. This meansthat articles from these domains reach a wide range of Facebook users belonging to different groups andpages. However, the top three pages in this data – all of which appear in the original NaturalNews briefing– account for 40.8% of the posts, highlighting their importance in the spreading of NaturalNews-affiliatedcontent on Facebook.

93 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/groups/585289412322451/permalink/606178016900257.

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Number of Shares

Page/ Group

Name

Interactions

Page

No Fluoride**

859

108

Page

GMO Dangers**

1,240

89

Page

Amazing Cures**

7,361

22

Public Group

BOLD NATURE Holistic Wellness Group7

10

Public GroupDR. MEHMET OZ**

14

8

Public Group

CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX!

449

8

Public Group

Climate Change Battle Royale

89

6

Public GroupOld time Medicine and Home Remedies

8

5

Public GroupBW HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP

3

4

Page

Stupid News Singapore

2** Group/page also appeared in our initial investigation
Table 5. Most active groups/ pages.

BOLD NATURE Holistic Wellness Group
The third most-active linker in our data is the group BOLD NATURE Holistic Wellness Group. It was createdin 2017 and is not associated with any geographic location. The group is run by Terror Fingas University,
associated with the blog of the same name.94 It appears to be concerned with truth-seeking and the desire
to “free the people from mental enslavement”.
All of the posts made to this group are from domains not represented in the most-shared stories, such as:
spirulina.news, turmeric.news, and aluminium.news.

Fig. 24. Screenshot of the “about” section of the BOLD NATURE Holistic Wellness Group

CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX!
This group was created in 2012 and is not associated with any geographic area. The about section of thegroup alleges that it is for both sides of the climate change discussion, but perhaps unsurprisingly given thegroup’s name, it focuses on climate denial content. All of the posts made on this group are of an article fromclimate.news about how carbon dioxide is greening the earth.

94 Terror Fingas University, https://fingasuniversity.tumblr.com/.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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Climate Change Battle Royale
This group was created in 2012 but changed its name in 2018. Unfortunately, we are unable to see what thename was before. The group does not list a location, but its members are from around the world, including
individuals from the US, South Africa, and Bangladesh. The opening lines of the group’s description are: “Isclimate change real? Or is it a communist plot to enslave humanity?”. Just as with the previous group, all of
the posts made to this group are from climate.news.

Old time Medicine and Home Remedies
This group was created in 2015 and is located in Mountain Home Arkansas. It is dedicated to sharing home
remedies commonly used by grandparents, instead of brand-name pharmaceuticals. Despite this, recent posts
from the group reveal that discussion strays from holistic medicine to anti-abortion content (see Fig. 23.).

Fig. 25. Screenshot of anti-abortion content shared on Old time Medicine and Home Remedies

BW HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP
This group was created in 2015. While it does not list a location, the about section says that it is dedicated“to help us all understand the reality of HIV AIDS and other diseases in Botswana”. The most linked-to
domain on this group is prevention.news, which focuses on articles about preventing cancer and otherdiseases through diet. The posts on this group follow the same theme, such as sharing recipes for ahomemade “Master Tonic”.

Fig. 26. Screenshot of natural remedy recipe shared on BW HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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Stupid News Singapore
This page was created in 2018 and is managed by an account located in Singapore. Posts on this pagehighlight humorous news stories and the benefits of yoga and t’ai chi. However, the page also posts antiChinese content, such as the post below, which argues that Chinese President Xi Jinping “ruined the world”.

Fig. 27. and Fig. 28. Screenshots of content posted on Stupid News Singapore page

Content of the NaturalNews Network on Facebook
The most-shared link is from science.news and discusses the conspiracy that 5G radio waves have caused
damage to cells in the human body and consequently, are to blame for the severity of the COVID-19
pandemic. While the most-shared link is from the science.news domain, the most over-represented domain
in our data is food.news. Six of the top 10 most linked-to stories are from food.news. They discuss dietary
associated cures and treatments for illnesses such as cancer. Most likely due to COVID-19, the most-posted
link from this domain is to an article about natural remedies for cold and flu symptoms.
Posts

DomainDate38science.news

26/02/2020

Did the 5G rollout in Wuhan damage the innate cellular defense cells of the population,
putting the people at risk of complications and death from coronavirus?

1,608

30

dangerousmedicine.com

29/06/2018

It’s true: Government kidnaps children and separates them from their mothers… learn
the truth about “medical kidnapping” and forced vaccinations, chemotherapy

31

28

mindcontrol.news

07/11/2019

In liberal Austin, anal sex will now be taught to children in grades 3 through 8 as public
education becomes pedophilia indoctrination

3,268

11

climate.news

26/04/2019

NASA declares carbon dioxide is GREENING the Earth… reveals how Green New Death isa DEATH cult that would collapse global ecology

3,513

11

food.news

22/11/2019

Fight cold and flu symptoms with these 6 natural remedies

487

10

food.news

10/02/2020

Go nuts for coconuts: 6 Health benefits of coconut meat

175

10

food.news

22/11/2019

Here’s why ginger turmeric tea is one of the best remedies for improving your overall
health119

9food.news

14/02/2020

Chili peppers discovered to contain a HOT compound against cancer

405

8food.news

06/03/2020

Here’s why LEMONS are considered powerful cancer-fighters607

7food.news

03/01/2020

Always eat your (green) veggies: What are the health benefits of chlorophyll?

40

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Article Headline

Interactions

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The anatomy of a disinformation empire:
investigating
investigatingnaturalnews
naturalnews

Business intelligence research into
corporate entities linked to NaturalNews
The below business details and the identification of the four domain registrant entities responsible for registering the 496 domains noted in
the previous section prompted ISD’s OSINT team to conduct business intelligence research into NaturalNews and its founders (see appendix).
The objective of this research was to develop an understanding of the scale of the organisation’s corporate assets and business associations.

Historical Relationships
Current Relationships

NN Store LLC
8.23.2018 –Present

Health Ranger Store NaturalNews Store
–
8.29.2012 –Present

Cynthia M Rankin

Arial Software, LLC
7.9.1998 –Present

Cole Bormuth

Webseed Inc. (AZ)
1.20.2006 –5.4.2015

Mike Adams

Helth Book Summaries Brighteon Media Inc
LLC
8.23.2018 – Present
11.17.2004 –1.10.2012

Webseed Inc (WY)8.13.2014 – Present

TalkNetwork
11.03.2015 – Present

Ian leeSouth Bend Aviation
Leasing, In...
9.9.2014 – 11.9.2016

Consumer Wellness
Centre, Inc
8.4.2014 – Present

Quantum Scienceand Research
6.13.2017 – Present

1285 Sheridan Ave, Ste 235
Cody, WY 82414

Arial Marketing, Inc
10.12.1995 – 1.26.1999

Dona C CoplandConsumer Wellness
Centre Inc
1.22.1990 – 2.6.2015

5769 W. Cortaro Crossing
Tucson, AZ 85742 USA

30 N Gould St Ste R
Sheridan, WY 82801 USA

1501 Stampede Ave
Cody, WY 82414 USA

Arial Translations LLC
7.9.1998 – 8.15.2012

Food Factor Inc
9.18.1998 – 6.5.2004

1225 NW Murray Blvd,
Ste 101
Portland, OR 97229, USA

Groovy Bee Inc
2.9.2018 – Present

Infinity Prana
Management LLC
2.2.2011 –Present

Shuyin Wu

Ananda Bhakti LLC
7.21.2011 – Present

Triple Eight Holdings LLC
7.9.1998 – Present

Arial Global
8.29.2012 – Present

CWC Labs LLC
8.19.2014 – 2018704 Highway 71 West #D200
Bastrop, TX 78602 USA

www.isdglobal.org

Registered
Agents Inc.

Sheh Adams

Quantum Fulfillment
and Support
7.21.2011 – Present

11900 Metric Blvd, J-156
Austin, TX 78758 USA

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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Party is recognised as an extremist organisationby the SPLC.102 This reveals that extremist groups
from different ideological backgrounds, and notjust right-wing extremists, engage with and share
NaturalNews-affiliated content on Facebook.

Table 6. Most-shared stories from NaturalNews-affiliateddomains.

Case Study
Black Panther-Affiliated Pages
Amongst the 51% of the posts not made by thehighest linkers are 27 Black Panther-affiliated pages
from around the world. Their locations include 12
US states, as well as countries like Sierra Leone,
Cameroon, India and Palestine.95 96 97 98 They also
include party divisions such as BLACK PANTHERPARTY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT and the BLACKPANTHER PARTY SCIENCE DEPT.99 100
These pages each shared the same link to a story
hosted on dangerousmedicine.com titled: “It’strue: Government kidnaps children and separates
them from their mothers… learn the truth about“medical kidnapping” and forced vaccinations,chemotherapy”.101 This link is the second mostpopular in our data, with 30 total posts. Two of
the 27 Black Panther-affiliated pages produced
two posts, so the total number of posts is greaterthan the total number of groups. All of these posts
occurred on 25 January 2020 between 00:31 and
22:04:
Time

Number of posts

00:29

1

00:31

1

00:32

16

00:33

5

01:22

5

22:04

1

Table 7.

This pattern of behaviour suggests that theadministrator of these affiliated pages used a
posting app to share the same content with
regional and specialist Facebook pages belonging
to the Black Panthers at the same time. It is also
important to note that the New Black Panther95 Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/groups/139441199810756/permalink/860841731004029.
96 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/groups/116056442150055/permalink/832729093816116.
97 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/groups/596988220473151/permalink/1544647892373841.
98 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/groups/981237351930531/permalink/2764963470224568.
99 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/groups/1556278164677863/permalink/2224915457814127.
100 Ibid., https://www.facebook.com/groups/1339636726052186/permalink/3257784937570679.
101 Dangerous Medicine, It’s true: Government kidnaps children and separates them from their mothers… learn the truth about “medical kidnapping” and forced
vaccinations, chemotherapy (29 June 2018), https://dangerousmedicine.com/2018-06-29-government-kidnaps-children-truth-about-medical-kidnapping-andforced-vaccinations-chemotherapy.html.
102 SPLC, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/new-black-panther-party.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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In total, ISD’s research identified 21 current andhistorical entities linked to NaturalNews, Adams,
and Sheh Adams, incorporated as back as far as
January 1990 and as recently as February 2018.103
The majority of the 21 companies ISD identified
have been domiciled in tax haven states such as
Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, and Nevada.104 105 Link
analysis indicates a high degree of overlap between
this group of companies’ officers, directors,
registered agents, and addresses:
Review of current and historical corporate registry
documentation indicates several of the 21
companies shown in Fig. 27. have merged withidentically named entities in other states over the
past decade. For example, a pair of companies, both
named Webseed Inc., appear to have been registeredin Arizona (incorporated 20 January 2006) andWyoming (incorporated 13 August 2014).106 107 The
Arizona company appears to have merged with the
Wyoming company on 6 February 2015, before being
officially listed as inactive in the Arizona corporate
registry as of 4 May 2015. The Wyoming-based
Webseed Inc., the surviving entity, remains active.
Similarly, on the same day as the Webseed Inc.
merger, 6 February 2015, a pair of entities named
Consumer Wellness Center, Inc. from Arizona(incorporated 22 January 1992) and Wyoming(incorporated 4 August 2014) also merged, with
the Wyoming entity left as the surviving entity.108 In
both instances, the Wyoming and Arizona entities
were simultaneously active for nearly six months.
The business purpose for this overlapping period ispresently unclear.

Hundreds of
domains, set up in
apparent bursts ofactivity, present asignificant threat
Fig. 29. Screenshot
from Google Street View of the address
totechnology
of NaturalNews-linked companies
giants alreadyburdened with thetask of preventing
the spread of
disinformation in
an informationrich environment.

103 Due to lack of transparency within US corporate registry databases ISD is unable to confirm if these 21 companies represent the totality of NaturalNews’ businessassets.
104 Washington Post, How the U.S. became one of the world’s biggest tax havens (5 April 2016), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/05/howthe-u-s-became-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-tax-havens/.
105 Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/taxhaven.asp.
106 Arizona Corporation Commission, https://ecorp.azcc.gov/BusinessSearch/BusinessInfo?entityNumber=12551817.
107 Wyoming Secretary of State, https://wyobiz.wyo.gov/Business/FilingDetails.aspx?eFNum=194102063161008040019168021108145054080071233207
108 Ibid., https://wyobiz.wyo.gov/Business/FilingDetails.aspx?eFNum=122038094053107062209093116048240203053032236106

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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OSINT research did not identify
brick-and-mortar businesses
located at any of the addresses
used to registered the companies
noted in Fig. 27.109 In several
instances, the addresses used toregister these companies appear
to be nondescript businessparks, often shared by municipal
services, law firms, mail forwarding
services, or seemingly unrelated
businesses.110 For example,
corporate registry documents foreight of the current and historical
NaturalNews-linked companies
shown in Fig. 27. list a registeredaddress of 1501 Stampede Ave,
Cody, WY 82414. A brief checkusing Google Street View (Fig.
28.) indicates this is the addressof the Park County Public Library,part of a larger complex of county
government offices.111 112

registered location of hundredsof other companies.116

Likewise, registry documentation
indicates five of the current andhistorical NaturalNews-linked
companies shown in Fig. 27.
are registered at the address
30 N Gould St Ste R Sheridan,
WY 82801. This appears tobe the address of several law
firms (per media reporting), a
corporate services agent and a
mail forwarding company. 113 114
115
Moreover, a targeted website
search of this address on thethird-party open-source corporate
database OpenCorporates
indicates this address may be theConclusion
The breadth and scale of
NaturalNews’ network
both on social media
and the surface web
serve as a useful guideto understanding thecapabilities of thoseseeking to misrepresent
and mislead. Hundredsof domains, set up
in apparent burstsof activity, present asignificant threat totechnology giants alreadyburdened with thetask of preventing the
spread of disinformationin an information-richenvironment. Driven
by dozens of pages andgroups, both public
and private, networks
like NaturalNews posesignificant ongoingchallenges to platforms
such as Facebook in
their efforts to combat
disinformation actors who

109 In-person site visits would be required to fully verify the existence of brick-and-mortar businesses at the addresses ISD reviewed via OSINT research.
110 Mail forwarding services can sometimes act as “virtual offices” for businesses, typically just a location for mail to be sent to on behalf of businesses operating only
online.
111 Google, https://www.google.com/maps/place/1501+Stampede+Ave,+Cody,+WY+82414,+USA/@44.5206905,-109.0590868,3a,75y,142.8h,88.74t/
data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLbVwr8t-odTpV2RTpG8tkQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x534c1ed27debca79:0xe86f1adcfbfff387!8m2!3d44.5205447!
4d-109.0584826.
112 Park County Wyoming, http://www.parkcounty.us/departments.html.
113 Pipeline News, New head Quantum office has a lot of tenants (30 May 2018), https://www.pipelinenews.ca/new-head-quantum-office-has-a-lot-oftenants-1.23318018.
114 Registered Agents Inc, https://www.registeredagentsinc.com/contact-us/.
115 Saratoga Platte Valley Chamber of Commerce, http://saratogaplatte.chambermaster.com/list/member/wyoming-mail-forwarding-llc-331.
116
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fopencorporates.
com+%2230+N+Gould+St+Ste+R+Sheridan%2C+WY+82801+USA%22&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA899CA899&oq=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fopencorporates.
com+%2230+N+Gould+St+Ste+R+Sheridan%2C+WY+82801+USA%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.11050j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.

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TheAnatomy
anatomy ofof aa Disinformation
disinformation Empire:
empire:investigating
Investigatingnaturalnews
NaturalNews

Possible NaturalNews-Affiliated Domains Identified by ISD
0-9
3dprint.news
3dprinters.news
A
acioformation.com
adams.news
addiction.news
airpurification.news
aisystems.news
alternativesearch.com
aluminum.news
aluminumdefense.com
ametheos.com
amethios.com
amethios.org
antioxidants.news
aquifers.newsarialglobalreach.com
arialtranslations.com
arsenic.news
arseniceliminator.com
assopaipai.org
atomic.news
augmentedrealitynews.com
authenticwords.com
aviator.news
awakening.news
Bbacklash.news
barter.news
bees.news
biased.news
bigpharmanews.com
biologicalterrorism.com
biosludge.news
biosludged.com
biosolids.news
biosolidswatch.com
bioweapon.com
blueberries.news
bodycircles.com
brain.news
breakthrough.news
breastfeed.news
brighteon.us
bubble.newsburningitup.com
Ccacao.news
cadmium.news
cameragear.news
campaignenterprise.com
campaignsoftware.com
cancer.news
cancermyths.com
cancerscams.news
cancertruthrevealed.com
capturetoxins.com
catastrophe.news
cdcreporter.com
cereals.news
cesiumeliminator.com
chelation.news
chlorellafactor.com
chlorellanews.com
chlorellanews.org
chlorellascience.com

civilization.news
cleanchlorella.com
cleanfood.news
cleanwater.news
climate.news
climatesciencenews.com
collectivewisdombooks.com
collectivewisdomguides.com
colloidalsilver.news
colloidalsilvernews.com
consciouscosmology.com
consciousness.news
consumers.news
consumerwellness.info
consumerwellness.org
contamination.news
cosmic.news
counterthink.cocourage.news
Ddangerousfood.com
dangerousfoods.com
dangerousingredients.com
dangerousmedicine.com
dementia.news
desertcures.com
desktopfabrication.com
desktopfabrication.news
detox.news
disastersupply.com
diseaseprevention.news
distributed.news
distributednews.com
divinitynow.com
dolphindialogs.com
domesticterrorism.com
Eecoleds.com
ecology.news
economiccollapse.news
electricity.news
emaildesigntemplates.com
emailmarketingdirector.com
emergencyfood.news
emergencymedicine.news
endangeredknowledge.org
entitlements.news
ethics.news
euthanasia.news
excite.news
excitotoxins.com
extinction.news
Ffactcheck.news
factoryfood.news
falloutblocker.com
falloutdefender.com
falloutdefense.com
falseflagreport.com
farmacy.news
fascism.news
fasting.news
fdareform.org
firstamendment.news
fishdefense.com

fishoils.news
fitnessheadlines.com
fiveshockingfacts.com
fivestepguides.com
fivestepsolutions.com
flusurvival.com
food.news
foodbars.news
foodcures.news
foodfabnews.com
foodfabrecipes.com
foodfabstore.com
foodfactor.com
foodfascism.com
foodforensics.com
foodfreedom.news
foodinvestigation.com
foodinvestigations.com
foodismedicine.com
foodlabels.news
foodrising.com
foodrising.news
foodrising.org
foodscience.news
foodshortage.news
foodstamps.news
foodstorage.news
foodtesting.news
freedomvideos.com
fruits.news
fukushimadefense.com
Ggadgetreviews.news
genetherapy.news
geneticallymodifiedrhymes.com
geneticengineeringtoday.com
globalcooling.news
gmorhymes.com
gmosong.com
grassrootsvideos.com
greenenergy.news
greenhomes.news
greenlivingreport.com
greenwashing.news
griddown.news
griddownnews.com
grocery.news
grocerycures.com
groceryreview.com
grocerywarning.com
groovybee.us
growableorganics.com
growyourmedicine.com
H
happyplanetnews.com
happyplanetshop.com
healingarts.news
healingfoods.news
healingfromheavymetals.com
healingplants.news
health.news
healthbooksummaries.com
healthderanger.com
healthderanger.info
healthderanger.org
healthfreedomreport.org

healthproductsnews.com
healthranger.cohealthranger.com
healthranger.info
healthranger.me
healthranger.mobi
healthranger.news
healthranger.org
healthrangerdiabetescure.com
healthrangerlive.com
healthrangerorganics.com
healthrangerradio.com
healthrangersdiabetescure.com
healthrangerstorableorganics.com
healthrevolutionpetition.org
healthrevolutiontour.com
heavymetals.news
heavymetalsblocker.com
heavymetalsdefense.com
heavymetalsnews.com
herbal.news
herbfacts.com
herbranger.com
herbreference.com
heritage.news
heritagewhey.news higher.news
homegardening.news
homeschooling.news
homewaterpurification.com
honestfoodguide.com
honestfoodguide.org
honeybees.news
humanitarian.news
humanpowered.news
humanpowernews.com
hyperinflationreport.com
Iinaturalnews.com
incred ible.news
indoctrination.news
influencetoday.com
inshape.news
intelligence.news
intelligentdesign.news
intolerance.news
inventors.news
J–
K
kitchengadgets.news
Llabeling.news
languagecodes.com
leftbehind.news
lifeafterdeath.news
lifemanuals.com
lifetips.news
linkseed.com
lostsecretsofhealth.com
lowheavymetals.org
lowheavymetalsverified.org
Mmalnutrition.news
mayhem.news

medicaljournalwatch.com
medicalviolence.com
medicinalherbs.news
mental.news
mercuryaway.com
metalsdefense.com
mighty.news
mikeadams.me
mind.news
mindcontrol.news
minifarmgrowbox.org
mojo.news
moringa.news
moviereviews.news
mrsa.news
msg.news
multiverse.news
myradiationdefense.com
myths.news
Nnaturalactionnetwork.org
naturalcures.news
naturaldisaster.news
naturaldivinity.com
naturaldivinity.org
naturalfoods.news
naturalhealth.news
naturalhealthbookstore.com
naturalhealthconsumer.com
naturalhealthcustomers.com
naturalhealthdiet.com
naturalhealthdoctors.com
naturalhealthexchange.com
naturalhealthformulas.com
naturalhealthgrocery.com
naturalhealthheadlines.com
naturalhealthletter.com
naturalhealthlibrary.com
naturalhealthnews.com
naturalhealthreader.com
naturalhealthrecipes.com
naturalhealthreport.com
naturalhealthreports.com
naturalhealthshopper.com
naturalhealthtalk.com
naturalhealthtimes.com
naturalhealthupdate.com
naturalhealthvideos.com
naturalhealthwire.org
naturally.news
naturalmedicine.news
naturalnews.conaturalnews.mobi
naturalnewsvideos.com
naturalosophy.com
naturalosophy.org
naturalpedia.com
naturalpedia.org
naturalpreppers.com
naturalproducts.news
naturalvideonews.com
neuralimprinting.com
newenergyreport.com
newsbehindthenews.com
newscapture.com
newstarget.info
nuclear.news
nutrients.news
nutritionheadlines.com

www.isdglobal.org

Oo3essentials.com
obedience.news
obedient.news
offgrid.news
officialsources.news
omega3.news
openwire.news
oralhealth.newsorganicfarming.news
originalnascentiodine.com
outrageous.news
Ppatriotpouches.us
peakfood.news
peakoil.news
permaculture.news
permissiontools.com
pethealth.news
petitions.news
pharmaceuticalfraud.com
philosophy.news
phytonutrients.news
plague.info
plantcures.news
plantmedicine.news
poisonpantry.com
politicalreputation.com
pollution.news
popo.news
powergrid.news
predictions.news
preparednessreport.com
presscapture.com
preventcancer.news
preventionreport.com
printyourfood.com
proteinexposed.com
psych.news
psychdrugs.news
publicrelations.news
purewater.news
Qquantumcomputing.news
quarantine.news
quickening.news
R
racewars.news
realworld.news
recovery.news
reflectium.us
reformthefda.com
reformthefda.org
refreshing.news
religiousfreedom.news
reputationintelligence.com
reputationmonitor.com
retracted.news
retractions.news
reverseheartdisease.news
Ssacred.news
sacredlotusclinic.com
safezeolites.com
sccwc.com

science.news
sciencedeception.com
sciencedeception.org
sciencefailure.com
scienceskeptic.com
secondamendment.news
seeds.news
serious.news
sevenlawsofnutrition.com
shape.news
shortage.news
silvermaker.com
skinhealth.news
skynet.news
smokeforthecure.org
socialjustice.newssocially.newssocialunrest.news
solar-model.org
soulofpharma.com
soundhealingnews.com
soundjourneys.com
soundjourneys.org
spacecraft.news
spacetourism.news
spacetravel.news
spamdontbuyit.com
spamdontbuyit.org
speakout.news
spices.news
spirulina.news
spirulinanews.com
spirulinareport.com
spirulinascience.com
storablesuperfoods.us
strategic.news
subliminal.news
sunlightcure.com
sunmedicine.com
supercollider.news
supercomputer.news
superfood.news
superfoodforsoldiers.com
superfoodforsoldiers.org
superfoodforsoldiers.us
superfoods.news
supplementsreference.com
supplementsreport.com
supplydirectory.com
supplyresource.com
supplysource.com
surfacecomputingreport.com
survivalgoods.com
survivalreports.com
sweeteners.news
Ttactical.news
technocrats.news
theflusolution.com
thelanguagecodes.org
thepoisoners.com
thepoisoners.org
thestarfieldsimulation.com
thinking.news
thoughtcontrol.news
thoughtpolice.news
toxicfoods.com
toxindefense.org
toxinremovers.com

toxins.news
trademarkintelligence.com
tragedy.news
transhumanist.news
trusted.news
truthpublishing.net
turmeric.news
tyranny.news
Uunbelievable.news
uncensoredvitamins.org
unreal.news
upcast.ususdawatch.com
usdawatch.org
Vvaxdefense.com
veggie.news
vibe.news
videogear.news
videohealthnews.com
videohealthreport.com
views.news
violence.news
violentcrime.news
vitamind.news
vitamindreport.com
vox.news
vrworld.news
Wwages.news
wakeup.news
wapo.news
washingtonpost.news
waterfilters.news
waterfilterscience.com
waterfiltersnews.com
waterhealthnews.com
waterpurifiers.news
waterwars.news
waycool.news
webseed.com
webseed.net
webseed.org
webseeding.com
whatworksfor.me
wheyprotein.news
whistleblower.news
wholefoods.news
wildfoods.news
womenshealth.news
X
xray.news
Yy2ksupply.com
yummy.newsZzeolitescience.com

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

persevere in promoting themselves andtheir networks through both organic andinauthentic means.
Moreover, the NaturalNews network highlights
the difficult parallel challenges of dealing withmisleading and outright false content (e.g. false
health information, extremist materials, etc.) andon-platform behaviour (e.g. spam-like behaviour
aimed at promoting websites within Facebook
groups and pages). While the need to mitigate
platform manipulation focused on promoting
problematic sites on networks such as Facebook
remains an unfinished job, the issue at handextends far beyond a single social network. Domain
registrars continue to provide such actors online
real estate necessary to promote harmful content.
Organizations such as NaturalNews can only exist as
a result of real-world corporate infrastructure. Until
all three aspects (domains, social media presence,and corporate assets) are addressed in unison,
empires such as that of NaturalNews will continue
to subsist.

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Appendix
NewsGuard List of NaturalNews-Affiliated Domains
A–M
mediafactwatch.com
medicalextremism.com
medicine.news

Bbanned.news
biased.news
bioterrorism.news
C
californiacollapse.news
cdc.news
censorship.news
conspiracy.news
cures.news

Nnaturalcures.news
naturalnews.com
naturalnewsradio.com
naturopathy.news
newsfakes.com
newstarget.com
nytwatch.com openborders.news
Ooutbreak.news

D
depopulation.news
disinfo.news

Ppandemic.news
panic.news
plantmedicine.news
populationcontrol.news
propaganda.news

Eeugenics.news
extinction.news
Ffactcheck.news
faked.news
freedom.news

Q
R
realInvestigations.news
remedies.newsrisk.newsG–H
health.news
herbs.news
honest.news

S
science.news
scienceclowns.com
sciencefraud.news
scientific.news
sheeple.news
shtf.news
superbugs.news
Ttechgiants.news
technocrats.news
twisted.news
tyranny.news
UI
infections.news
Jjournalism.news
KL–

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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Fact-Checking

uprising.news
Vvaccinedamage.news
vaccineinjurynews.com
vaccines.news
Wwapoop.news
washingtonposted.news
XYZ–

ISD assessed the validity of the most-shared stories from NaturalNews-affiliated domains. We fact-checked
the 10 most-shared stories in each of the two Facebook investigations using fact-checking websites Full
Fact, Snopes, and AFP. These organisations review news and media through an independent and impartial
lens while adhering to strict journalistic ethics and guiding principles.117

Investigation 1 – NewsGuard List of
NaturalNews-Affiliated Domains
1. “Climate change hoax collapses as
new science finds human activity
has virtually zero impact on global
temperatures”, NaturalNews,
12/07/2019.
118

Claims:– This article cites a Finnish research paper thatsuggests that cloud cover is responsible fordifferences in temperature, which are thenfalsely attributed to climate change.
– The research paper in question is a six-pagelong “article” written by Jyrki Kauppinen andPekka Malmi of the University of Turku, which
can be found on arXiv.org.119
Fact-Checking:– arxiv.org is a website whose purpose is tomake research available before it has been
peer-reviewed or approved for publishing. Thisis explicitly stated by the website itself, which
has a disclaimer on the homepage that reads:“e-prints posted on arXiv are not peer-reviewed
by arXiv; they should not be relied upon without
context to guide clinical practice or healthrelated behavior and should not be reported innews media as established information without
consulting multiple experts in the field.”– Following the paper’s citation in this article, it
was reviewed by scientists at Climate Feedback,a network of scientists who fact-check media
about climate change.120 These experts deemedthat the NaturalNews article “should not be
relied upon”.121– The remainder of the article engages with manywell-recognised tropes used by climate change
deniers, such as those laid out by snopes.com.122

2. “The disturbing history of George Soros

117 AFP, AFP Editorial Standards and Best Practices (June 2016), https://www.afp.com/sites/default/files/paragraphrich/201701/22_june_2016_afp_ethic.pdf.
118 https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-07-12-climate-change-hoax-collapses-new-science-cloud-cover.html
119 Cornell University, https://arxiv.org/.
120 Climate Feedback, Non-peer-reviewed manuscript falsely claims natural cloud changes can explain global warming (11 July 2019), https://climatefeedback.org/
claimreview/non-peer-reviewed-manuscript-falsely-claims-natural-cloud-changes-can-explain-global-warming/.
121 Climate Feedback, https://climatefeedback.org/.
122 Snopes, The five pillars of climate change denial (12 February 2020), https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/02/12/the-five-pillars-of-climate-change-denial/.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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that every American should know”,
NewsTarget, 28/11/2016.123
Claims:– This article alleges that during the Second World
War, a young Soros turned on his Jewish kinsmen
and helped the Nazi regime find and deport
members of the Hungarian Jewish community
in 1944 and 1945, although the article does notprovide specific dates for its claims.
– The story also claims that Soros gave US$33
million to local activists in Ferguson, Missouri, toincrease racial polarisation and violence.
Fact-Checking:– Soros was never affiliated with the Nazis and infact, was only 14 when the war ended, making
his participation even more unlikely.124– While Soros did give funds to organisations
involved in the Ferguson protests, this was notdone with “the express purpose of promoting
Ferguson-related protests and riots”.125

3. “Democrats conspiring to stage false flag
bloodshed on 20 January in Virginia –“Charlottesville 2.0” – in order to ignite a
civil war and mass chaos”, NaturalNews,
16/01/2020.
126

Claims:– This article claims to reveal a plot orchestrated
by the mainstream media and the governmentof Virginia, who prepared to stage violence
during the Lobby Day pro-gun rally on 20
January 2020.
– The article argues that this plot would provide
the necessary grounds to enact a state of
emergency, confiscate legally owned guns from
American citizens, and remove President Trumpfrom office.
Fact-Checking:– While snopes.com verified that a state of
emergency was indeed announced, it also
revealed that the claims of Left- and Antifaorganised violence were unreliable andultimately false.127

123 https://www.newstarget.com/2016-11-28-the-disturbing-history-of-george-soros-that-every-american-should-know.html
124 Snopes, Was George Soros an SS officer or Nazi collaborator during world war II? (28 November 2016). https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-soros-ss-nazigermany/.
125 Snopes, Did George Soros fund Ferguson protests and Black Lives Matter? (22 January 2015), https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/riot-act/.
126 https://www.newstarget.com/2018-06-05-homeschooling-skyrockets-as-more-parents-get-fed-up-with-left-wing-social-engineering.
html?fbclid=IwAR0lQrWwzWddCXedRaFyZnh9RjcyjmsM63SDa0dqoF3Q1LC9wYd96xVaVRQ
127 Snopes, Did Virginia declare a state of emergency ahead of pro-gun rallies? (20 January 2020), https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/virginia-gun-rally-emergency/
and Did Antifa plan to infiltrate Virginia’s pro-gun rally to stage violence? (20 January 2020), https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/virginia-gun-rally-staged/.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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4. “Homeschooling skyrockets as moreparents get fed up with left-wing social
engineering and violence in publicschools”, NewsTarget, 06/05/2018.

5. “Vaccine bombshell as UN health experts
admit toxic vaccine ingredients areharming children worldwide – see video
transcript”, NaturalNews, 02/13/2019.

Claims:– This article argues that the increase inapplications for homeschooling in the wake of
the Parkland school shooting was a reaction to
the increased presence of left-wing ideology inthe education system.

Claims:– -This article alleges that health experts admitted
that harms are being caused by vaccines
worldwide. On 2 December 2019, the transcriptof a video that was taken at a talk on global
trust in vaccines and immunisations run by
the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London
School of Hygiene & Tropical Disease.131

128

130

– It cites an article from the Washington Times
that quoted worried parents naming theunsafe environment and bullying as reasons forwithdrawing their children from school.129

Fact-Checking:– -The video itself is not available via the link,instead, the article bases its claims on an
unofficial transcript of the video.
– -The claims made in the article engage withwell-known anti-vaccine conspiracies as
discussed by Full Fact and Snopes.132

Fact-Checking:– We have been unable to verify claims madeby the article that this phenomenon is linked
to other issues such as the introduction oftransgender bathrooms and the bullying ofstudents wearing clothing with pro-Trump
slogans.

128 https://www.newstarget.com/2018-06-05-homeschooling-skyrockets-as-more-parents-get-fed-up-with-left-wing-social-engineering.
html?fbclid=IwAR0lQrWwzWddCXedRaFyZnh9RjcyjmsM63SDa0dqoF3Q1LC9wYd96xVaVRQ
129 Washington Times, Educational decline: Homeschooling surges as parents seek safer option for children (30 May 2018), https://www.washingtontimes.com/
news/2018/may/30/homeschooling-surges-parents-seek-escape-shootings/.
130 https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-13-un-health-experts-admit-toxic-vaccine-ingredients-are-harming-children-worldwide-transcript.html
131 Vaccine Confidence Project, https://www.vaccineconfidence.org/.
132 Snopes, Malicious bots and trolls spread vaccine misinformation (18 September 2019), https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/09/18/malicious-bots-and-trollsspread-vaccine-misinformation/ and Full Fact, Facts on Vaccines, https://-.org/health/vaccines/.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

6. “5G radiation causes behaviour changes
in humans, causes ion potentiation
poisoning of brain cells, leading to massinsanity”, NaturalNews, 03/12/2019.

7. “Brighteon Films posts new 5G minidocumentary that warns humanity about
the imminent danger of 5G cell towers”,
NaturalNews, 03/01/2020.

Claims:– The waves emitted by 5G towers cause brain
damage and psychiatric illness.

Claims:– This article claims that 5G cell towers are
dangerous.

133

Fact-Checking:
There is currently no scientific consensus tosay that 5G has negative impacts on physical ormental health.134 Instead, Snopes recognises that
there is an “infodemic” surrounding 5G that seeks
to exacerbate distrust in science and medical
professionals.135

136– It cites the Scientific American and Professor
Martin Pallas its main sources of information.
Fact-Checking– While the article cites the Scientific American,
it does not provide the title of the article or a
relevant link; instead, the hyperlinked text takes
readers to another NaturalNews article on 5G.
– The second source cited by NaturalNews is
Martin Pall, a professor emeritus at Washington
State University. Pall is well known for speaking
out about the alleged dangers of 5G but has faced
criticism from other scientists for only reportingon findings that support his point of view.137– According to an investigation done by
the Guardian:138

133 https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-12-03-5g-radiation-causes-behavior-changes-in-humans-mass-insanity.html
134 Ibid., 5G conspiracy theories prosper during the coronavirus pandemic (9 April 2020), https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/09/5g-conspiracy-theories-prosperduring-the-coronavirus-pandemic/.
135 Ibid.
136 https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-03-brighteon-films-new-5g-mini-documentary-imminent-danger-of-5g-cell-towers.html
137 Kenneth R. Foster, and John E. Moulder. Response to Pall, Wi-Fi is an important threat to human health. Environmental Research, Volume 168 (2019): Pages 445-447.
138 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/how-baseless-fears-over-5g-rollout-created-a-health-scarewww.isdglobal.org

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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8. “New evidence emerges: Coronavirus“bioweapon” might have been a Chinese
vaccine experiment gone wrong… genes
contain “pShuttle-SN” sequences,proving laboratory origin”, NaturalNews,
02/02/2020.
139

Claims:– This article engages in unverified claims
surrounding the origins of the coronavirus,
highlighting that scientists recently found thatthe coronavirus has the same protein structure
as HIV.
– The story claims that this fact means
coronavirus was manufactured in a lab and while
not necessarily a bioweapon, it is evidence of a
vaccine gone wrong.
Fact-Checking:– The research paper cited in the article wasremoved by the authors because it had notbeen peer-reviewed or officially published, but it
became popular with conspiracy theorists. Thiswas exposed by Snopes, who revealed that the
HIV protein strands found in the coronavirus areso small that their appearance is “nothing morethan random chance”.140

9. “UN hiring “disarmament officers” toconduct “field missions” in New York as
UN occupation plan for US goes live”,
NaturalNews, 02/01/2020.
141

Claims:– On 2 January 2020, the above story fromNaturalNews also appeared on the conspiracy
news site Info Wars.142– The story argues that the UN’s disarmament,
demobilisation and reintegration programme isa “euphemism for gun confiscation”.
– It also mentions a previous request made by
Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin tohave the UN deployed in Chicago to help end
the “quiet genocide” of African-Americans.143
Fact-Checking:– While Richard Boykin did make this request,
it was misleadingly circulated with a fake UN
document from 2013 that outlined the creationof a “civilian weapons confiscation group.”144

139 https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-02-02-coronavirus-bioweapon-chinese-vaccine-experiment-gone-wrong-pshuttle-sn-gene-sequence.html
140 Snopes, The origins and scientific failings of the COVID-19 ‘bioweapon’ conspiracy theory (1 April 2020), https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19bioweapon/.
141 https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-02-un-hiring-disarmament-officers-field-missions-new-york-un-occupation-of-america.html
142 InfoWars, UN hiring “disarmament officers” to conduct “field missions” in New York as UN occupation plan for America Goes Live (2 January 2020), https://www.
infowars.com/un-hiring-disarmament-officers-to-conduct-field-missions-in-new-york-as-un-occupation-plan-for-america-goes-live/.
143 Snopes, Will UN peacekeepers be deployed on the streets of Chicago? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/will-un-peacekeepers-deployed-streets-chicago/.
144 Ibid.

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Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
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10. “New science proves that vaccines
spread infectious disease, causing up
to 15 times more infections among fully
vaccinated children”, NaturalNews,
24/01/2020.
145

Claims:– This article engages in the unverified claims
surrounding vaccine effectiveness. It discusses
the DTaP vaccine that protects against
diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis or whooping
cough, as responsible for giving inoculated
individuals whooping cough.
Fact-Checking:– There is no scientific evidence to support thisclaim. Firstly, a relatively recent change in thetype of vaccine resulted in a decrease in its
period of effectiveness.146– The CDC says that the increase in cases canalso be attributed to an increased reporting andwider spread of the bacteria.147– Both the CDC and the European Centre for
Disease Control (ECDC) continue to recommend
the vaccine as the most effective way to protect
against whooping cough.148

145 https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-24-vaccines-spread-infectious-diseaes-15-times-more-infections-fully-vaccinated.html
146 Harvard Health Publishing, Protection from the TdaP vaccine doesn’t last very long (9 February 2016), https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/protection-from-thetdap-vaccine-doesnt-last-very-long-201602099202.
147 CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/dtap-tdap-td/public/index.html.
148 ECDC, https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/pertussis/facts.

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Investigation 2 – OSINT Identified NaturalNews-Affiliated Domains
1. “Did the 5G rollout in Wuhan damage
the innate cellular defence cells of
the population, putting the people
at risk of complications and deathfrom COVID-19?”, Science.news,
26/02/2020.

2. “It’s true: Government kidnaps
children and separates them from theirmothers… learn the truth about “medical
kidnapping” and forced vaccinations,chemotherapy”, dangerousmedicine.
com, 29/06/2018.152

Claims:– 5G towers produce ionising waves that alter thecells in the human body and cause cancer.

Claims:– The stories about immigrant children being
mistreated in US detention facilities are“manufactured fake news” (see below).

149– 5G waves compromise the functioning of cells,
resulting in a greater risk of developing a severecase of COVID-19.
Fact-Checking:– 5G is non-ionising meaning that it does notharm cells.150– Waves emitted by 5G towers cannot damage
the DNA inside cells, while waves with higher
frequencies (such as X-rays, gamma rays andultraviolet light) are thought to cause cancer.151– The US government has been kidnapping
children from parents who do not vaccinate
the children, or who pursue alternative cancer
treatments—or “medical kidnapping”

Fact-Checking:– An article approved by Snopes as a verified
source explicitly describes the mistreatment ofimmigrant children being held in US detention
facilities, as told by eyewitnesses.153– Snopes discusses the difficulty in investigatingclaims of medical kidnapping orchestrated byChild Protect Services (CPS) agencies, especiallythat “news outlets are generally unable toverify a family’s claims in any given CPS dispute,which creates the risk of unwarranted public
alarm being generated from incidents that havepractical and reasonable explanations.”154

149 https://www.science.news/2020-02-26-5g-rollout-in-wuhan-damage-the-innate-cellular-defense-cells-coronavirus.html
150 Full Fact, These claims about the new coronavirus and 5G are unfounded (13 March 2020), https://fullfact.org/online/coronavirus-5G/.
151 Ibid., https://fullfact.org/health/5G-not-accelerating-coronavirus/.
152 https://dangerousmedicine.com/2018-06-29-government-kidnaps-children-truth-about-medical-kidnapping-and-forced-vaccinations-chemotherapy.html
153 Associated Press, Attorneys: Texas border facility is neglecting migrant kids (21 June 2019), https://apnews.com/46da2dbe04f54adbb875cfbc06bbc615.
154 Snopes, Alabama CPS ‘medical kidnap’ (17 June 2016), https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alabama-cps-medical-kidnap/.

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About the Institute for Strategic Dialogue

Anatomy of a Disinformation Empire:
Investigating NaturalNews

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is an independent nonprofit organisation
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and polarisation worldwide.
We combine sector-leading expertise in global extremist movements with advanced
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Only in collaboration with all of these groups can we hope to outcompete extremist
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