Those Cute Cats Online? They Help Spread Misinformation.

Videos and GIFs of cute animals — usually cats — have gone viral online for almost as long as the internet has been around. Many of the animals became famous: There’s Keyboard Cat, Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub and Nyan Cat, just to name a few.

And Western Journal, a right-wing publication that has published unproven claims about the benefits of using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, and spread falsehoods about fraud in the 2020 presidential election, owns Liftable Animals, a popular Facebook page. Liftable Animals posts stories from Western Journal’s main website alongside stories about golden retrievers and giraffes.

“The strategy works because the platforms continue to reward engagement over everything else,” Ryan said, “even when that engagement comes from” publications that also publish false or misleading content. The viral animal videos often come from places like Jukin Media and ViralHog. The companies identify extremely shareable videos and reach licensing deals with the people who made them. After securing the rights to the videos, Jukin Media and ViralHog license the clips to other media companies, giving a cut of the profits to the original creator.

Asked whether the company evaluated whether their clips were used as engagement bait for misinformation in striking the license deals, Skogmo said Jukin had nothing else to add.

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