A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing of credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per-article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources. Questionable Reasoning: Poor Sourcing, Lack of Transparency, Failed Fact Checks, Conspiracy, Pseudoscience
QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
Detailed Report
Bias Rating: RIGHT
Factual Reporting: MIXED
Country: Germany
Press Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: High Traffic (via social media)
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY
History
Founded in 2007, Disclose TV is a website aggregating news and opinion content from other sources. The site maintains an about page that lists ownership, funding, and disclaimers. It does not describe the mission of the website. The website also lacks transparency as they do not name authors or editors.
In 2017, Disclose.TV was added to Politifact’s Fake News List.
Before September 19, 2021, Disclose TV was a forum that relied upon user-generated content that often promoted conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. From its beginning until 2019, Disclose TV focused primarily on UFOs, aliens, ghosts, cryptozoology, and other baseless conspiracy theories. The site’s early tagline stated, “Disclose.tv – UFOs, ghosts, paranormal, conspiracy & other top secret videos.” On September 19, 2021, they wiped all user-generated news content and removed forums. They also removed content from their social media platforms. According to IFCN fact checker Logically.ai, Disclose TV claimed they were becoming a news website.
Logically points out that despite wiping the website, social media content, and forums, it had amassed over 4 million followers across its social media channels. Finally, on January 11, 2022, a day after Logically contacted Disclose TV to comment on their investigation, the Discord server and the public link on their webpage to that server were gone.
For reference, our previous summary of Disclose TV as of 2019 read (note that links are broken due to deletion by Disclose TV):
“The users of Disclose TV publish news stories that are often conspiratorial and sometimes just fake. They also publish some legitimate articles as well. Disclose TV frequently publishes news about aliens and UFOs, such as this: UFO sighting in the Philippines. They also promote stories regarding chemtrails, anti-vaccination propaganda as well as false flag conspiracies. In general, this is an over-the-top conspiracy and pseudoscience website.”
Read our profile on Germany’s media and government
Funded by / Ownership
Disclose TV has been owned by Futurebytes GmbH & Co. KG since 2008. Futurebytes is a limited partnership with a limited liability company as a general partner. Advertising and donations generate revenue.
Analysis / Bias
For this updated review, we will focus on the website and social media platforms content published after September 19, 2021. The goal is to determine if Disclose TV has become a credible news site.
Disclose TV does not publish original content; instead, they aggregate news from other sources. Under the “trending” category, they aggregate news from a wide range of sources, offering a snippet of the article and a link to the primary source. We found they rely on a mix of credible sources such as BBC, Sky News, Reuters, and questionable or conspiracy sources such as Newsmax, Zerohedge, and Fox News.
Under the “news” category, they report the news without referencing the source. For example, in this story, Ex-Google boss thinks AI is as dangerous as nuclear bombs they rely on a story from Vice. This is fine; however, they do not provide a hyperlink or the name of the original source, but they do link to a Twitter video featuring Eric Schmidt speaking on the topic.
Finally, under the videos category, they publish videos that are often controversial, such as this US has “secret evidence” of UFOs breaking the sound barrier without a sonic boom. This video is sourced from Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence, John Radcliffe.
Although Disclose TVs’ website is no longer publishing overt conspiracies and pseudoscience, there is evidence they continue to do so on social media. For example, on a Dec. 30, 2021, Tweet, they claimed that “95% of Omicron cases are in vaccinated people.” Snopes has ruled this false (see screenshot via Snopes).
According to DW News, Disclose TV has promoted Holocaust denialism, stolen USA election conspiracy theories, and disinformation regarding Covid-19 vaccines. They further indicate that they generally advocated for Far-Right policy positions.
While Disclose TV appears to have limited far-right disinformation in 2022, we still rate them Questionable based on a lack of transparency, the use of poor sources, a couple of failed fact checks, and a long history of promoting conspiracy theories and pseudoscience.
Before September 19, 2021, Disclose TV failed more than a dozen fact checks over the years.
Failed Fact Checks (Since Sept 19, 2021)
- More than 95% of omicron cases are in vaccinated people. – False
- The Sarco assisted suicide pod has been cleared for legal use in Switzerland. – False (Deleted)
Overall, we rate Disclose TV Right Biased and questionable based on the use of poor sources, a lack of transparency, failed fact checks, and though improved, a long history of promoting conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. (D. Van Zandt 7/22/2016) Updated (09/16/2022)
Source: http://www.disclose.tv/
Last Updated on May 22, 2023 by Media Bias Fact Check
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