How April Fools hoax stories can help spot fake news

April Fools hoax stories could offer linguistic clues to spotting ‘fake news’ articles, say scientists who identified the similarities in the language used in humorous spoofs and malicious stories.

Researchers from Lancaster University in the UK compiled a dataset of more than 500 April Fools articles sourced from more than 370 websites and written over 14 years.

They found that there are similarities in the written structure of humorous April Fools hoaxes published by media outlets and fake news stories.

“April Fools hoaxes are very useful because they provide us with a verifiable body of deceptive texts that give us an opportunity to find out about the linguistic techniques used when an author writes something fictitious disguised as a factual account,” said Edward Dearden from Lancaster University.