When I first registered this website, I initially wanted my primary URL to be “fakenewsalmanac dot com”. However, this was already taken by the now-defunct Fake News Roundup, with the now-abandoned “fakenewsroundup dot com” URL.

Normally, I would be just okay with this, and move on. But this little Roundup site wasn’t just a site that “rounded up” fake news: it was a sort of fake news site in itself.

When “fact checking” became a thing that was deemed important by Facebook and the Google news aggregator, we started seeing the rise of fake fact-checking sites (for instance, the one described here: https://debunkingdenialism.com/2018/06/11/another-fake-fact-checker-exposed/).

Similarly, we ended up with fake fake-news aggregators — ad-soaked sites that collected links to websites that actually debunked the fake news described in the headlines.  One of these sites was our friend Fake News Roundup, whose header was an ugly clipart of a rodeo cowboy on a bull or horse. I can’t remember which, because it’s 1) been some time since I’ve seen the site; 2) I didn’t take a screenshot; and 3) they used robots dot txt, so I can’t pull up their page on the Wayback Machine.

Since this fake fake-news aggregator had cropped up and taken the URL I aimed for, my friend and I thought that I could start a beef with this Fake News Roundup. If this gained the other site’s attention, this might lead to more views to my site. If not, it would look like a pathetic attempt to start a beef, but those who love drama would tune in for more, right?

However, I was not quite ready for drama at that point in my career. I was focused on crafting posts filled with original research and crafty quips, though I put the idea of making up a beef on the back burner.

When I wanted to follow up, after a year of being dormant, I found that I had won the undeclared domain battle, by default. So this is a pretty anticlimactic ending to a catfight that never was, but here you go. My first post in a doozy.