| --- |
| license: cc-by-4.0 |
| --- |
| |
|
|
| # Dataset Card for *`epi-domains`* 0.1.1 |
|
|
|
|
| `epi-domains` is a multi-class labelled set of web domains that contribute to informational exchanges and political discussions online. |
|
|
| It is composed of 4 classes, totalling 23,257 web domains: |
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/238YBB1CAB7tewbIHM61X.png" width="600"> |
|
|
| - **Questionable Source** are domains whose integrity is questionable but haven't been flagged or verified as malicious or sharing misinformation. |
| - **Misinformation Spreaders** are websites that share misinformation online. |
| - **FIMI-related Domains** are websites that have been confirmed to be linked to foreign information manipulation interference operations, or coordinated / state-led campaigns. |
| - **Reliable Sources** are organizations or institutions that safeguard information integrity online, e.g., fact-checker organisations, or other contributors to online informational spheres that have been assessed as reliable by experts (e.g. news outlets assessed by fact-checking organisations as highly reliable). |
|
|
|
|
| ## Dataset Variants |
|
|
| The dataset is made available under two variants, both being `csv` formats: (1) a source-attributed dataset (`epidomains.csv`) where all datapoints, and each of their label, is sourced; |
| and (2) a clean version (`epidomains_clean.csv`) with only label values. |
| The sourced version is also made available in the `split` directory with a 60-20-20 train-val-test split, stratified by classes to have each split balanced. |
|
|
|
|
| ## FIMI-related Domains: |
| These datapoints mainly originate from primary sources (e.g. governmental or cybersecurity reports), or are supported by 2+ secondary sources (e.g. news articles). |
| The majority is attributed a perpetrator and/or target country: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/AnumBFyi84wK0bm2g0gYG.png" width="900"> |
|
|
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/8EoKCxDCQMpSB4wUPjyqX.png" width="900"> |
|
|
| ## Labels |
|
|
| Many of the domains in this dataset also have labels, usually expert-driven scores pertaining to their reliability. |
|
|
|
|
| ### Reliability |
|
|
| Reliability is mainly scored as a binary flag *(n = 17,977)*: |
|
|
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/5C3Pvr2fvRXgk97H8SSgZ.png" width="600"> |
|
|
| Though some domains also have a continuous reliability score *(n = 9,640)*: |
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/vbovNHRwUrSby5HKKu05X.png" width="600"> |
|
|
|
|
| And a smaller part of domains also have categorical reliability labels *(n = 3,889 for 3-cat, n = 1,750 for 6-cat)*: |
|
|
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/MzEtG2sBRZB6Hby1dImGN.png" width="600"> |
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/_E2F5Wf4uM_knRVJeJmS6.png" width="600"> |
|
|
|
|
| ### Factuality |
|
|
| Factuality is mainly scored as a categorical dimension *(n = 2,635)*: |
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/99RwoHc7B7BoLVEGMZz0E.png" width="600"> |
|
|
| Or a continuous one *(n = 9,640)*: |
|
|
| <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/tgzxYfyd_jFTeXtrtjb6f.png" width="600"> |
|
|
| ### Conflict Resolution |
|
|
| When original data sources disagree on a domain's label (for categorical labels), either (1) the label is chosen through a majority vote, (2) the domain is discarded if there are not enough sources for a majority vote. |
| <!-- Remaining agreements between datasets is thus 1.0 across the board for binary reliability. For categorical reliability, we observe similar rates: --> |
|
|
| <!-- <img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/681e3663829118a837bbaeb3/Vvv6gt5pSt5TWr5FHFVIv.png" width="400"> --> |
|
|
|
|
| ### Data sources |
|
|
| Some of the primary contributors to the dataset are: |
| - Domains Quality Ratings (41.4%) |
| - Meta Threat Reports (27.0%) |
| - Wikipedia General (13.5%) |
|
|
| The full list: |
|
|
| | Source | Rows | % of Total | |
| |---|---:|---:| |
| | [Domains Quality Ratings](https://github.com/hauselin/domain-quality-ratings) | 9,640 | 41.4% | |
| | Meta Threat Reports (e.g, [[1](https://transparency.meta.com/sr/Q1-2025-Adversarial-threat-report/)]) | 6,283 | 27.0% | |
| | [Wikipedia General](https://github.com/kynoptic/wikipedia-reliable-sources) | 3,131 | 13.5% | |
| | [MBFC Ratings](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com) | 2,635 | 11.3% | |
| | [Manual](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zmQyorjaXswFNO4Vr-QpTPxt4B6EjCx6bmYF95X823A/edit?usp=sharing) | 1,892 | 8.1% | |
| | [Iffy Index](https://iffy.news) | 1,750 | 7.5% | |
| | [Misinfodomains](https://github.com/JanaLasser/misinformation_domains) | 1,690 | 7.3% | |
| | [Hosts Fake News](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) | 1,148 | 4.9% | |
| | [MBFC's Questionable List](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fake-news/) | 1,138 | 4.9% | |
| | [CheckThat!](https://checkthat.gitlab.io/clef2025/) | 916 | 3.9% | |
| | [Wikipedia Campaigns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_disinformation_website_campaigns) | 807 | 3.5% | |
| | [Wikipedia Miscellaneous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miscellaneous_fake_news_websites) | 769 | 3.3% | |
| | [Wikipedia Fake News](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites) | 404 | 1.7% | |
| | [Zoznam](https://konspiratori.sk) | 335 | 1.4% | |
| | [Politifact's Almenac](https://infogram.com/politifacts-fake-news-almanac-1gew2vjdxl912nj) | 275 | 1.2% | |
| | [Paperwall](https://citizenlab.ca/research/paperwall-chinese-websites-posing-as-local-news-outlets-with-pro-beijing-content/) | 123 | 0.53% | |
| | [Ngo Report Israel Blacklist](https://ngoreport.org/blacklisted-ngo/pro-israel-ngos/) | 89 | 0.38% | |
| | [Ngo Report Uae Blacklist](https://ngoreport.org/blacklisted-ngo/pro-uae-ngos/) | 88 | 0.38% | |
| | [Ngo Report Saudi Blacklist](https://ngoreport.org/blacklisted-ngo/pro-saudi-arabia-ngos/) | 80 | 0.34% | |
| | [Wikipedia II Actors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fact-checking_websites) | 60 | 0.26% | |
| | [Nelež](https://www.nelez.cz/en/) | 51 | 0.22% | |
| | [FakeNewsNet](https://github.com/kaidmml/fakenewsnet) | 49 | 0.21% | |
| | [Hasbara Tracker](https://hasbaratracker.com) | 17 | 0.0731% | |
| | [EDMO Hubs](https://edmo.eu/about-us/edmo-hubs/) | 16 | 0.0688% | |
| | [Ngo Report Russia Blacklist](https://ngoreport.org/blacklisted-ngo/pro-russia-ngos/) | 4 | 0.0172% | |
|
|
|
|
| <!-- ## Splits: |
|
|
| ``` json |
| [webgraph-ts] scanned=2025_oct_nov_dec matched_rows=15933 |
| [webgraph-ts] scanned=2025_26_nov_dec_jan matched_rows=15937 |
| [webgraph-ts] scanned=2025_26_dec_jan_feb matched_rows=16328 |
| [webgraph-ts] scanned=2026_jan_feb_mar matched_rows=15993 |
| [webgraph-ts] domains_with_timestamp=16781 total_seed_records=16781 |
| { |
| "snapshot_count": 4, |
| "snapshots": [ |
| "2025_oct_nov_dec", |
| "2025_26_nov_dec_jan", |
| "2025_26_dec_jan_feb", |
| "2026_jan_feb_mar" |
| ], |
| "timestamp_source": "webgraph", |
| "class_counts": { |
| "coordinated_inauthentic": { |
| "train": 1269, |
| "val": 423, |
| "test": 423, |
| "unsplittable": 0 |
| }, |
| "integrity_actor": { |
| "train": 747, |
| "val": 249, |
| "test": 249, |
| "unsplittable": 0 |
| }, |
| "misinfo_spreader": { |
| "train": 2520, |
| "val": 840, |
| "test": 840, |
| "unsplittable": 0 |
| }, |
| "questionable": { |
| "train": 5532, |
| "val": 1844, |
| "test": 1845, |
| "unsplittable": 0 |
| } |
| }, |
| "unknown_class_rows": 0 |
| } |
| ``` --> |
|
|
|
|
| ### Dataset Versions |
|
|
| | Version | Description | |
| | ---- | ---- | |
| | 0.1.0 | First public version | |
| | 0.1.1 | Filtered out more extensively 'provider'-websites (e.g. media hosting services, search engines and social media, where content is attributable to a third-party, not to the domain itself). |
|
|
|
|
| - **Curated by** the CrediNet organisation, which consists of a team of collaborators from the Complex Data Lab @ Mila - Quebec AI Institute, the University of Oxford, McGill University, Concordia University, UC Berkeley, University of Montreal, and AITHYRA. |
| - **Funding:** This research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the AI Security Institute (AISI) grant: |
| *Towards Trustworthy AI Agents for Information Veracity and the EPSRC Turing AI World-Leading Research Fellowship No. EP/X040062/1 and EPSRC AI |
| Hub No. EP/Y028872/1*. This research was also enabled in part by compute resources provided by Mila (mila.quebec) and Compute Canada. |
| - **Dataset Contact:** emma.kondrup@mail.mcgill.ca |
|
|
