Buzzmag.live

Buzzmag.live is a website that copies-and-pastes articles, and then changes a few words in each paragraph.  

Here's an article from October 14, 2020, titled "Cristiano Ronaldo Falls Victim To The Coronavirus."

http://web.archive.org/web/20201031164345/https://buzzmag.live/cristiano-ronaldo-falls-victim-to-the-coronavirus/

Here's a Reuters article from October 13, 2020, titled "Cristiano Ronaldo tests positive for COVID-19"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ronaldo/cristiano-ronaldo-tests-positive-for-covid-19-idUSKBN26Y23K

Sample text from the Buzzmag.live article:

The 35-year-old forward is asymptomatic and is most likely to miss Wednesday’s UEFA Nations League game against Sweden as he self-isolates.

The federation added that the rest of the Portugal team had undergone tests as a result of Ronaldo testing positive, but they claimed that all tested negative and would be available for the Sweden match.

Sample text from the Reuters article:

The 35-year-old Juventus forward is asymptomatic and will miss Wednesday’s UEFA Nations League game against Sweden as he self-isolates.

The federation added that the rest of the Portugal squad had undergone tests as a result of Ronaldo’s positive, but that they had all tested negative and would be available for the Sweden match.

The homepage and articles on Buzzmag.live contain AdSense ads.  

Some users on Reddit are spamming the site, but I didn't notice any of them gaining much traction.  Here's user /u/Samanthabadra.  The WHOIS page for buzzmag.ive indicates the registrant is from Gampaha, Sri Lanka.

Why is this Facebook voting ad so spooky?

A few nights ago I was watching TV when this jarring commercial aired:

The point is to encourage Facebook users to learn about the 2020 voting process.  But the ad makes voting seem like it's some ominous endeavor.  Here are some highlights: 

0:00:  Spooky piano music plays.  An old woman stares out the window.  A girl in a darkened room gets ready to blow out her birthday candles, possibly for the last time.  A despondent man sits in the woods.  A mailman has a concerned look on his face while holding an envelope.  Some dude in a bathroom is stunned while reading a Facebook update about a dog.

0:17: A beleaguered mother of two tries to type something into her phone, and fails.

0:27: Close-up shot of a tongue.  

0:33:  The spooky piano music plays again.  The elderly woman asks her friend, "You'll be safe, right?"  (This is the LAST thing you'd ever want to ask someone in a horror movie.)  Two women in masks douse a voting area with spray and goo.  

0:49:  The ghostly sound of a child's laughter is heard.  

0:52:  A guy goes "Whoo!" in the voting booth.  (This isn't  scary, but the guy seems obnoxious.  I think he's wearing a fedora.)

0:56:  A plug for the website: www.fb.com/votinginfocenter.  This is the thing being advertised, believe it or not.  

With all that said, the actual FB website seems useful, and I was able to check my registration status in about 45 seconds.  However, I would have never thought to visit the website if I weren't poring over this spooky ad in preparation for writing a blog post.  The whole presentation reminded me of that infamous ad for the electric car.  You know, the one which made it seem like anyone who bought an electric car was doomed:

TheUnionJournal.com

TheUnionJournal.com is another site which plagiarizes content.

Here is an article from September 4th, 2020, with the byline Turan Gafarli, titled: "Amazon deletes 20,000 reviews after evidence of profits for posts."

The text is copied entirely from an FT.com article from September 4th, 2020, written by David Lee, titled: "Amazon deletes 20,000 reviews after evidence of profits for posts"

The Union Journal has a Twitter account with 1,987 followers and a Facebook page with 495 likes.  The Transparency section on the Facebook page lists the owner as Rottweiler Life(?) and it lists Egypt as the location of the three page managers.  A few posts from The Union Journal have done well on Reddit; a submission in /r/WorldNews linking to the story about Amazon reviews received over 63,000 upvotes.

The articles on TheUnionJournal.com display AdSense ads and contain internet chum.

As of October 2nd, the homepage of TheUnionJournal.com contains two additional outbound links:  One link leads to DigitalMarketNews.com.  Another leads to Reporter.am (The Armenian Reporter), which is listed as a "partner."  Both sites have a similar website layout at TheUnionJournal.

TheDailyNY.com

 Here's a news website which doesn't serve any purpose:  

www.TheDailyNY.com

The About page says:

The Daily New York is an online newspaper that brings you all the latest updates regarding Politics, Business, Tech, Entertainment, Health, Sports, Style, Travel and More.

We are truth hunters and narrators. We are writers, planners and technologists, joined by a strategic vision to empower the world. We demonstrate the veracity of history as it unfurls and clarify what occurred, why it did, and what it means to you.

Our items and stages take you to the farthest corners of the world, and they carry the world to you, conveying materials and stories that improve your lives, your families and your networks.

We are accessible on a larger number of screens in a larger number of spots than some other news source. We represent greatness in our news coverage and our items. We are focused on serving you

You should've realized something was off by the time you reached "Our items and stages take you to the farthest corners of the world."  The homepage has a Statue of Liberty graphic, and the header has links for "World," "Business," "Opinion," "Sports," etc... 

The site has lots of articles, most which are two paragraphs long.  The articles don't seem to be plagiarized, but the grammar is janky.  The only byline I saw was "Chris Norton," and clicking on the byline takes you to:  https://thedailyny.com/author/thedailynyofficial/.  I opened some stories in an incognito tab, and there weren't any ads.  The Contact page just contains a submission form.  The domain was registered on July 24, 2020.  

Here's a sample story titled "Serena Williams pulled out of French Open with Achilles injury ahead of her match against Tsvetana Pironkova":  https://archive.is/npT3t

TheDailyNY has a Twitter account with 612 tweets and 2 followers, and a Facebook page with 2 "likes."  This could all simply be some dude's personal project.  I'm not really sure.

A reddit account named /u/Ali_Sands has been spamming the domain.  Ali_Sands was also spamming another site a couple months ago called 365gamez.com, and he promoted some sort of "Song Quiz" app, which you can see in the Google Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.artonstudios.songquiz.  It's from Arton Studios.