About Hoaxle

The news has got strange enough that real headlines can pass for jokes, and good satire can pass for news. Hoaxle puts the two side by side. Every headline here was really published — your job is to say whether it came from a news outlet or a satire site.

Where the headlines come from

Satire: The Onion, The Daily Mash, NewsThump, The Beaverton, The Hard Times, Reductress, ClickHole, The Chaser, The Shovel, Duffel Blog.

Real: BBC News, The Guardian, NPR, NBC News, UPI, Sky News, RTÉ News, National Post, and reputable outlets linked from r/nottheonion. We only label a headline REAL if it comes from an established news organisation — no tabloids.

We show the headline, the outlet, the date and a link to the original article. We never copy the article itself. Every headline belongs to its publisher; click through and read them.

How headlines are picked

A small text model is trained to tell real from satire using only the headline. The headlines it gets wrong — real news that reads like a joke, and satire that reads like news — are the ones most likely to make the daily five.

What we filter out

Satire sometimes punches down. We don't. Headlines are removed automatically if they mention race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender identity, disability or migration; if they involve death, violence, war, abuse or illness; or if they contain slurs, profanity or sexual content. Real tragedy is not a guessing game.

Spotted a mistake?

If a headline is mislabelled, misquoted or shouldn't be here, email info@hoaxle.com. We fix corrections the same day.

Featured artists

Each day Hoaxle is printed in a different paper style. We're looking for illustrators and designers to create new ones — a masthead, a type treatment, a colour scheme, or a full themed edition. Featured work runs with your name and a link to your portfolio on the day it appears.

Send a few examples of your work or a rough idea to info@hoaxle.com. You keep the rights to everything you send; see the terms for the details.

Contact

Partnerships, press and everything else: info@hoaxle.com.