Le Parisien denounced Thursday, May 11, the fraudulent practices of a website usurping its name and copying its graphic charter to disseminate false information, including on the war in Ukraine, announcing a procedure to "stop this plagiarism".
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For several weeks, our newspaper has seen its graphic charter copied by the mysterious "leparisien.ltd", which spreads fake news (infox), most often against Ukraine and the West", sometimes "ostensibly conspiracy" and "yet widely shared on social networks", explains an online article of the daily.
Complaint to ICANN
Le Parisien has therefore "recently filed a complaint" with ICANN, a global regulator responsible for assigning addresses on the Internet, in the hope of quickly recovering the disputed domain name, "leparisien.ltd". The latter, which does not redirect to any home page, was created "early February", says the daily, without knowing precisely "when" lasts plagiarism. The articles published there "take over" the graphic codes of Le Parisien and reproduce the links leading to his real site. "But the title, photo and text have nothing to do" with the medium.
All criticize "the West, the United States or the war in Ukraine," the paper notes, citing headlines like "Joe Biden is a terrorist: new evidence" or "War in Europe is no longer necessary. The US Secretary of State talks about new borders for Ukraine." Others claim to bring the "truth about Zelensky's machinations in buying shells" or about the French depriving themselves of food while "the United States demands more money" from France "for the war in Ukraine". According to Le Parisien, some links have been "sponsored" on Facebook "in order to be disseminated more widely".
An article about a supposed "mass exodus" of Ukrainians to "escape military slavery" and "imminent death on the front" has also been "shared hundreds of times in recent days", including on Twitter by former centrist senator Yves Pozzo di Borgo, who has already relayed misleading information to his approximately 100,000 followers. If "it is impossible in the state to go back to the creator of this false site", the Parisian considers "difficult not to see the shadow of Russia", in a context of informational warfare.
