Fake news websites in the United States

The proliferation of fake news websites in the United States is seen as part of the rise of post-truth politics.

Definition

#1. ABCnews.com.co, a fake news website which spoofs ABC News, but was in reality completely unrelated, and published only fake stories.

#2. Denver Guardian, a blog site registered in 2016 which claimed to be a legitimate newspaper in Denver, but only ran a single fabricated story which went viral.

#3. RealTrueNews.com, which was created as a hoax that the author believed would teach their alt-right friends about reader gullibility.

Three examples of fake news websites.

Fake news websites deliberately publish hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation to drive web traffic inflamed by social media. These sites are distinguished from news satire, as they mislead and profit from readers' gullibility. The New York Times pointed out that within a strict definition, "fake news" referred to a fictitious article which was fabricated with the deliberate motivation to defraud readers, generally with the goal of profiting through clickbait.

The New York Times noted in a December 2016 article that fake news had previously maintained a presence on the Internet and within tabloid journalism in the years prior to the 2016 U.S. election. Prior to the election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, fake news had not impacted the election process and subsequent events to such a high degree. Subsequent to the 2016 election, the issue of fake news turned into a political weapon, with supporters of left-wing politics saying those on the opposite side of the spectrum spread falsehoods and failed to verify claims, with supporters of right-wing politics complaining they felt such accusations were merely a way to censor conservative views. Due to these back-and-forth complaints, the definition of fake news as used for such polemics became more vague.

Fake news websites

Marco Chacon created fake news site RealTrueNews to show his alt-right friends the absurdity of their gullibility. Chacon wrote a fake transcript for Clinton's leaked speeches in which Clinton explains bronies to Goldman Sachs bankers. Chacon was shocked when his fiction was reported as factual by Fox News and he heard his writings on Megyn Kelly's The Kelly File. Trace Gallagher repeated Chacon's fiction and falsely reported Clinton had called Bernie Sanders supporters a "bucket of losers" — a phrase made-up by Chacon. After denials from Clinton staff, Megyn Kelly apologized with a public retraction.

After his fictions were believed and viewed tens of thousands of times, Chacon told Brent Bambury of CBC Radio One program Day 6 that he was so shocked at readers' ignorance he felt it was like an episode from The Twilight Zone. In an interview with ABC News, Chacon defended his site, saying his was an over-the-top parody of fake sites to teach his friends how ridiculous they were. The Daily Beast reported on the popularity of Chacon's fictions being reported as if it were factual and noted pro-Trump message boards and YouTube videos routinely believed them. In a follow-up piece Chacon wrote as a contributor for The Daily Beast after the 2016 U.S. election, he concluded those most susceptible to fake news were consumers who limited themselves to partisan media outlets.

70news was another WordPress-based blog site, which produced fake news during 2016; in particular, one story falsely stating that Donald Trump had earned the most popular votes in the 2016 U.S. election, fooled search engine algorithms and ranked very highly in results the day after the election.

In addition to sites run on a shoestring budget, there are sites with more of an infrastructure behind them: Jestin Coler from Los Angeles founded Disinfomedia, a company which owns many fake news sites. He gave interviews under a pseudonym, Allen Montgomery. With the help of tech-company engineer John Jansen, journalists from NPR found Coler's identity. Coler explained how his intent for his project backfired; he wanted to expose alt-right echo chambers, and point out their gullibility. He stated his company wrote fake articles for the left-wing which were not shared as much as those from a right-wing point-of-view. Coler told NPR readers must be more skeptical in order to combat fake news.

Paul Horner, a creator of fraudulent news stories, told The Washington Post he made $10,000 per month through ads linked to fake news. He said he posted a fraudulent ad to Craigslist offering thousands of dollars in payment to protesters, and wrote a story based on this which was shared online by Trump's campaign manager. Horner believed when the stories were exposed as false, this would reflect negatively on Trump supporters who shared them. In retrospect after the election, he said he felt badly his efforts helped Trump. In a follow-up interview with Rolling Stone, Horner revealed The Washington Post profile piece on him spurred increased interest with over 60 interview requests from media including ABC News, CBS News, and CBS's Inside Edition. Horner explained his writing style: that articles appeared legitimate at the top and became increasingly absurd as the reader progressed. Horner told Rolling Stone he always placed his name as a fictional character in his fake articles. He said he supported efforts to decrease fake news websites.

Impact

2016 election cycle

U.S. President Barack Obama said, "If we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems."

Fraudulent stories during the 2016 U.S. presidential election popularized on Facebook included a viral post that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump, and another that actor Denzel Washington "backs Trump in the most epic way possible".

One prominent fraudulent news story released after the election—that protesters at anti-Trump rallies in Austin, Texas, were "bused in"—started as a tweet by one individual with 40 Twitter followers. Over the next three days, the tweet was shared at least 16,000 times on Twitter and 350,000 times on Facebook, and promoted in the conservative blogosphere, before the individual stated that he had fabricated his assertions.

U.S. President Barack Obama commented on the significant problem of fraudulent information on social networks impacting elections, in a speech the day before Election Day in 2016, saying lies repeated on social media created a "dust cloud of nonsense." Shortly after the election, Obama again commented on the problem, saying in an appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "if we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems."

U.S. response to Russia in Syria

Forbes reported that the Russian state-operated newswire Sputnik International, reported fake news and fabricated statements by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Sputnik falsely reported on 7 December 2016 that Earnest stated sanctions for Russia were on the table related to Syria, falsely quoting Earnest as saying: "There are a number of things that are to be considered, including some of the financial sanctions that the United States can administer in coordination with our allies. I would definitely not rule that out." Forbes analyzed Earnest's White House press briefing from that week, and found the word "sanctions" was never used by the Press Secretary. Russia was discussed in eight instances during the press conference, but never about sanctions. The press conference focused solely on Russian air raids in Syria towards rebels fighting President of Syria Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo.

Legislative and executive responses

Members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee traveled to Ukraine and Poland in March 2016 and heard from officials in both countries on Russian operations to influence their affairs. U.S. Senator Angus King told the Portland Press Herald that tactics used by Russia during the 2016 U.S. election were analogous to those used against other countries. King recalled the legislators were informed by officials from both Ukraine and Poland about Russian tactics of "planting fake news stories" during elections. On 30 November 2016, King joined a letter in which seven members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee asked President Obama to publicize more information from the intelligence community on Russia's role in the U.S. election. In an interview with CNN, Senator King warned against ignoring the problem, saying it was a bipartisan issue.

Amid worries about fake news and disinformation being spread by Russia, representatives in the U.S. Congress called for more action to track and counter alleged propaganda emanating from overseas. On 30 November 2016, legislators approved a measure within the National Defense Authorization Act to ask the U.S. State Department act against propaganda with an inter-agency panel. The legislation authorized funding of $160 million over a two-year-period. The initiative was developed through a bipartisan bill, the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, written by U.S. Senators Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Chris Murphy. Portman urged more U.S. government action to counter propaganda. Murphy said after the election it was apparent the U.S. needed additional tactics to fight Russian propaganda. U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden said frustration over covert Russian propaganda was bipartisan.

Republican U.S. Senators stated they planned to hold hearings and investigate Russian influence on the 2016 U.S. elections. By doing so they went against the preference of incoming Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who downplayed any potential Russian meddling in the election. U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain and U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr discussed plans for collaboration on investigations of Russian cyberwarfare during the election. U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker planned a 2017 investigation. Senator Lindsey Graham indicated he would conduct a sweeping investigation in the 115th U.S. Congress session.

"Pizzagate"

In early November 2016, fake news sites and Internet forums falsely implicated the restaurant Comet Ping Pong and Democratic Party figures as part of a fictitious child trafficking ring, which was dubbed "Pizzagate". The rumor was debunked by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, fact-checking website Snopes.com and The New York Times, and Fox News. The restaurant's owners and staff were harassed and threatened on social media. After threats, Comet Ping Pong increased security for concerts held inside its premises.

On 4 December 2016, an individual from Salisbury, North Carolina, walked into the restaurant with a semi-automatic rifle, and fired one or more shots inside the building before being arrested; no one was injured. In addition to the AR-15 style rifle, police seized a Colt .38 caliber handgun, a shotgun, and a folding knife from the suspect's car and person. The suspect told police that he planned to "self-investigate" the conspiracy theory, and was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a pistol without a license, unlawful discharge of a firearm, and carrying a rifle or shotgun outside the home or business. After the incident, future National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn were criticized by many reporters for spreading the rumors. Two days after the shooting, Trump fired Michael G. Flynn from his transition team, with The New York Times and ABC News both reporting the action by the President-Elect was directly tied to Flynn's Twitter posting of fake news.

Days after the attack, Hillary Clinton spoke out on the dangers of fake news in a tribute speech to retiring Senator Harry Reid at the U.S. Capitol. Clinton called the spread of fraudulent news and fabricated propaganda an epidemic that flowed through social media. She said it posed a danger to citizens of the U.S. and to the country's political process. Clinton said in her speech she supported bills before the U.S. Congress to deal with fake news. Following Michael G. Flynn's comments, CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter linked the conspiracy theory to the election of Donald Trump as President-elect of the United States, saying that Trump "is a conspiracy theorist" who "in a few different cases tweeted out links to clearly fake news stories". Steller pointed out that Trump promoted fake news about thousands of Muslims cheering on a rooftop in New Jersey on the day of the September 11 attacks and claimed that millions of illegal immigrants had voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election, which Trump won.

Media commentary

Other media

Gleb Pavlovsky, who helped form a Russian propaganda operation, told The New York Times in August 2016 that the Russian government saw international relations as special operations. Pavlovsky said he was certain there were many groups tied to the Russian government active in fabricating fake news. Peter Kreko of the Hungary-based Political Capital Institute spoke to International Business Times about his work studying Russian disinformation, and said the Obama Administration did not devote enough efforts to combating the propaganda campaign. He said U.S. government officials were frustrated at the lack of action against Russian information warfare.

Swedish attorney Anders Lindberg explained a common pattern of fake news distribution. He said "The dynamic is always the same: It originates somewhere in Russia, on Russia state media sites, or different websites or somewhere in that kind of context." After this, Lindberg observed fake news became fodder for reporting by far-right or far-left websites, and shared onwards. He pointed out the danger was fabricated news became prominent issues in governmental security policy. Deutsche Welle noted fake news was a threat to democratic societies in the U.S., Europe, and nations worldwide. U.S. News & World Report warned readers to be wary of fraudulent news composed of either outright hoaxes or propaganda, and recommended the website Fake News Watch for a listing of problematic sources.

Critics contended fraudulent news on Facebook may have been responsible for Donald Trump winning the 2016 U.S. presidential election, because most of the fake news Facebook allowed to spread portrayed him in a positive light. Facebook is not liable for posting or publicizing fake content because, under the Communications Decency Act, interactive services cannot be held responsible for information provided by another Internet entity. Some legal scholars, like Keith Altman, think that Facebook's huge scale created such a large potential for fake news to spread that this law may need to be changed. Writing for The Washington Post, Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe co-director Eric Chenoweth wrote evidence suggested a great deal of fake news was fabricated by Russian intelligence.

BuzzFeed News called the problem an epidemic. According to BuzzFeed's analysis, during the 2016 U.S. elections the 20 top-performing election stories from fraudulent sites generated more shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook than the 20 top-performing stories from 19 major news outlets. Fox News host of the meta journalism program Media Buzz, Howard Kurtz, acknowledged fraudulent news was a serious problem. Kurtz relied on BuzzFeed News research for his reporting. Kurtz wrote Facebook contaminated the news with junk sources. Citing the BuzzFeed investigation, Kurtz pointed out factual news reporting drew less comments, reactions, and shares, than fabricated falsehoods. Kurtz concluded Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg must admit the website is a media company, and get rid of charlatans, or face harm to the company's reputation.

Slate magazine senior technology editor Will Oremus wrote prevalence of fake news sites obscured a wider discussion about filter bubbles. Oremus expounded on his views in a follow-up article, where he criticized journalists were applying the label of fake news too broadly. Abby Ohlheiser of The Washington Post echoed this view by Oremus, writing combating fake news backfired due to the difficulty over-defining it.

BBC News interviewed a fraudulent news site writer who went by the pseudonym "Chief Reporter (CR)", who defended his actions and possible influence on elections. CR said increased gullibility of an electorate to believe anything they read online yields itself to increased power of fake news. He said consumers should be ready to face the impact of such gullibility.

Ari Shapiro on the National Public Radio program All Things Considered interviewed The Washington Post journalist Craig Timberg, who explained a massive amount of botnets and financed Internet trolls increased the spread of fake news online. Timberg said thousands of Russian social media accounts functioned as a "massive online chorus". Timberg stated Russia had a vested interest in the 2016 U.S. election due to a dislike for Hillary Clinton over the 2011–13 Russian protests.

On 5 December 2016 Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson spoke with Bill McMorris of The Washington Free Beacon, who downplayed the fake news problem and said it was being used by the media to censor conservatism in the United States. McMorris stated proponents of left-wing politics felt fake news should be defined as anything outside of their filter bubble, which was believed by adherents of right-wing politics. The Times of London wrote that fake news was exaggerated by the Clinton campaign passing blame for losing the election. The Times wrote that fake news flourished in the 2016 election due to an left-slanted ideological bias on the part of the mainstream media.

See also

• Clickbait
• Confirmation bias
• Echo chamber (media)
• Filter bubble
• List of fake news websites
• List of satirical news websites
• Selective exposure theory
• Spiral of silence
• Tribe (Internet)

Further reading

• Chris Hedges (18 December 2016), ‘Fake News’: Homegrown, and Far From New
• Jamie Condliffe (15 November 2016), "Facebook's Fake-News Ad Ban Is Not Enough", MIT Technology Review, retrieved 16 November 2016
• Cassandra Jaramillo (15 November 2016), "How to break it to your friends and family that they're sharing fake news", The Dallas Morning News, retrieved 16 November 2016
• Craig Silverman and Lawrence Alexander (3 November 2016), "How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News", BuzzFeed, retrieved 16 November 2016
• Ishmael N. Daro and Craig Silverman (15 November 2016), "Fake News Sites Are Not Terribly Worried About Google Kicking Them Off AdSense", BuzzFeed, retrieved 16 November 2016
• Craig Silverman (16 November 2016), "Viral Fake Election News Outperformed Real News On Facebook In Final Months Of The US Election", BuzzFeed, retrieved 16 November 2016
• Taylor, Adam (26 November 2016), "Before 'fake news,' there was Soviet 'disinformation'", The Washington Post, retrieved 3 December 2016
• Andrew Weisburd, Clint Watts and JM Berger (6 November 2016), "Trolling for Trump: How Russia is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy", War on the Rocks, retrieved 6 December 2016

External links

• Kim LaCapria (2 November 2016), "Snopes' Field Guide to Fake News Sites and Hoax Purveyors", Snopes.com, snopes.com, retrieved 16 November 2016
• Rachel Dicker (14 November 2016), "Avoid These Fake News Sites at All Costs", U.S. News & World Report, retrieved 16 November 2016
• Lori Robertson and Eugene Kiely (18 November 2016), "How to Spot Fake News", FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, retrieved 19 November 2016
• Jared Keller (19 November 2016), "This Critique of Fake Election News Is a Must-Read for All Democracy Lovers", Mother Jones, retrieved 19 November 2016
• Lance Ulanoff (18 November 2016), "7 signs the news you're sharing is fake", Mashable, retrieved 19 November 2016
• Laura Hautala (19 November 2016), "How to avoid getting conned by fake news sites - Here's how you can identify and avoid sites that just want to serve up ads next to outright falsehoods.", CNET, retrieved 19 November 2016
• Sreenivasan, Hari (17 November 2016), "How online hoaxes and fake news played a role in the election", PBS NewsHour (video), retrieved 29 November 2016