NPR Reporter Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator

[Smug Bastard]

[QUOTE]At any given time Coler says he’s got between 20 and 25 writers. And it was one of them that wrote the story in the Denver Guardian that an FBI agent who leaked Clinton emails was killed. Coler says that over 10 days the site got 1.6 million views. He says stories like this work because they fit into existing right-wing conspiracy theories.“The people wanted to hear this,” he says. “So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional: the town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. And then … our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums, and boy it spread like wildfire.”
And as the stories spread, Coler makes money from the ads on his websites. He wouldn’t give exact figures, but he says stories about other fake news proprietors making between $10,000 and $30,000 a month apply to him. Coler fits into a pattern of other faux news sites that make good money, especially by targeting Trump supporters.
However, Coler insists this is not about money. It’s about showing how easily fake news spreads. And fake news spread wide and far before the election. When I pointed out to Coler that the money gave him a lot of incentive to keep doing it regardless of the impact, he admitted that was “correct.”

[/QUOTE]

[URL]https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/11/23/npr-tracked-down-a-fake-news-creator-in-the-suburbs-heres-what-they-learned/[/URL]

[polyhistor]

As much as I find this trend disgusting, I can't say that I am surprised.

There needs to be hard legislation against faux news if there isn't already.

[quote]However, Coler insists this is not about money. It’s about showing how easily fake news spreads.[/quote]

[Quote]He wouldn’t give exact figures, but he says stories about other fake news proprietors making between $10,000 and $30,000 a month apply to him.[/quote]

[I]Liar liar pants on fire.[/i]

[Quote]Coler, a registered Democrat, says he has no regrets about his fake news empire. He doesn’t think fake news swayed the election.[/quote]

[Quote]Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait.[/quote]

:v:

[ithon]

[QUOTE=Lyonidis;51441188]
[I]Liar liar pants on fire.[/i]
:v:[/QUOTE]

actually I heard about that number before from an estimate, and before hand was estimated to make over 100k per month.

Edit: unless you were commenting below then not above, I was looking when you were still adding your text

[alxnotorious]

Maybe [I]this is a fake news story too![/I]

OoooOooooOooooo!

[polyhistor]

[QUOTE=Ithon;51441206]actually I heard about that number before from an estimate, and before hand was estimated to make over 100k per month.[/QUOTE]

I would respect him a lot more if he just admitted to being what is [i]essentially[/i] a con artist, instead of trying to justify his enterprise as merely "proving a point."

[editline]28th November 2016[/editline]

[QUOTE=Alxnotorious;51441209]Maybe [I]this is a fake news story too![/I]

OoooOooooOooooo![/QUOTE]

The sad thing is the fact that it's totally believable.

[Super Muffin]

The part that upsets me the most is when one of these fake sites gets caught, is proven to be false, and people defend it tooth and nail.

I honestly don't know how to fight fake news sites without stoking conspiracy nerds' "government shut down the TRUTH!" narrative like it always does.

[QUOTE=Alxnotorious;51441209]Maybe [I]this is a fake news story too![/I]

OoooOooooOooooo![/QUOTE]

At least the site is credible. KQED is an NPR member that's been around since the late '50s. Most of the fake news sites (like the Baltimore Gazette) don't even have wikipedia pages.

[ithon]

[QUOTE=Lyonidis;51441221]I would respect him a lot more if he just admitted to being what is [i]essentially[/i] a con artist, instead of trying to justify his enterprise as merely "proving a point."
[/QUOTE]

yep people who are registered democrats get trolled all the time with fake stuff, just happens to get reported by the real news. con artist still trying to play the con.

[Rantis]

Is it weird that the first thing that came to mind when I read the title was YouTube "news" stations that use text to speech and oftentimes "report" on bullshit clickbait?

[Elspin]

[QUOTE=Lyonidis;51441188][QUOTE]Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait.[/QUOTE]
:v:[/QUOTE]

Speaking as a pretty liberal person I think they must have just been doing a shit job because I see other liberals fall for obvious bullshit all the time. They might not go for shit as outlandish as alex jones and his gay frogs but it's incredible how often I see other liberals sharing obviously made up shit

[Jaguar]

[QUOTE=Lyonidis;51441221]I would respect him a lot more if he just admitted to being what is [i]essentially[/i] a con artist, instead of trying to justify his enterprise as merely "proving a point."[/QUOTE]

It's just a "prank/social experiment"

[hexpunK]

[QUOTE=Elspin;51441378]Speaking as a pretty liberal person I think they must have just been doing a shit job because I see other liberals fall for obvious bullshit all the time. They might not go for shit as outlandish as alex jones and his gay frogs but it's incredible how often I see other liberals sharing obviously made up shit[/QUOTE]

I can't really think of much recently (particularly during the election run-up) that I saw left leaning individuals falling for that was clearly bullshit. What I can remember seeing would largely be small, pretty pointless things.

In comparison we had the literal horde of /pol/ and /r/the_donald shitting out fake "news" and "fact" memes constantly, to the point that they were actually being picked up by the general public (like the whole "Hillary laughed about defending a rapist!!!" and "KKK GRAND WIZARD KISSED HILLARY!!!" photoshop). Which Trumps online support just ate up because despite it all being frankly ludicrous, it fed into their preconceived notion she was actually Satan incarnate.

[Tamschi]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441480]I can't really think of much recently (particularly during the election run-up) that I saw left leaning individuals falling for that was clearly bullshit. What I can remember seeing would largely be small, pretty pointless things.

In comparison we had the literal horde of /pol/ and /r/the_donald shitting out fake "news" and "fact" memes constantly, to the point that they were actually being picked up by the general public (like the whole "Hillary laughed about defending a rapist!!!" and "KKK GRAND WIZARD KISSED HILLARY!!!" photoshop). Which Trumps online support just ate up because despite it all being frankly ludicrous, it fed into their preconceived notion she was actually Satan incarnate.[/QUOTE]

There was that whole 'trump voters are all racist' thing, but I guess that falls more under insult/opinion.
The amount of distinct fake stories was orders of magnitude lower from the left, that's for sure.

[hexpunK]

[QUOTE=Tamschi;51441526]There was that whole 'trump voters are all racist' thing, but I guess that falls more under insult/opinion.
The amount of distinct fake stories was orders of magnitude lower from the left, that's for sure. (The issue is very similar here.)[/QUOTE]

That's just a generalisation from the kind of Trump supporters people were encountering online (the shield of anonymity strikes again, those guys are probably top tier wimps IRL).
When I think fake news, I think of the dumb shit like "HILLARY DYING???" that was being pushed by certain Trump supporters here because she collapsed from Pneumonia. Or other equally dumb shit that you'll probably find on the Snopes home page.

[Luni]

[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;51441465]It's just a "prank/social experiment"[/QUOTE]

But is it on camera?

[Big D Duchovny]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441480]I can't really think of much recently (particularly during the election run-up) that I saw left leaning individuals falling for that was clearly bullshit. What I can remember seeing would largely be small, pretty pointless things.

In comparison we had the literal horde of /pol/ and /r/the_donald shitting out fake "news" and "fact" memes constantly, to the point that they were actually being picked up by the general public (like the whole "Hillary laughed about defending a rapist!!!" and "KKK GRAND WIZARD KISSED HILLARY!!!" photoshop). Which Trumps online support just ate up because despite it all being frankly ludicrous, it fed into their preconceived notion she was actually Satan incarnate.[/QUOTE]

Not to mention we had that pizza pedo story in the videos section yesterday, people actually think Hillary rigged the election (and lost), etc.

Maybe it's simply because people on right are generally very (read: overly) sceptical of authority, but yeah I think the amount of bullshit being sent around on the right is both larger and more serious.

[Tamschi]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441542]That's just a generalisation from the kind of Trump supporters people were encountering online (the shield of anonymity strikes again, those guys are probably top tier wimps IRL).
When I think fake news, I think of the dumb shit like "HILLARY DYING???" that was being pushed by certain Trump supporters here because she collapsed from Pneumonia. Or other equally dumb shit that you'll probably find on the Snopes home page.[/QUOTE]

Clinton did her part in (overly) painting his supporters as racist too, so I'd put it more in the propaganda category than mere reaction.
(Her campaign also brought up #GG (as told by wu), but not many people seemed interested in that. I don't think they pursued that further.)

I agree though, the stuff that right-wing extremists propagate is a lot more ridiculous and just gets spewed everywhere with mostly zero application of common sense.

[polyhistor]

[QUOTE=Elspin;51441378]Speaking as a pretty liberal person I think they must have just been doing a shit job because I see other liberals fall for obvious bullshit all the time. They might not go for shit as outlandish as alex jones and his gay frogs but it's incredible how often I see other liberals sharing obviously made up shit[/QUOTE]

Not agreeing with him at all, I am just in awe at some of the absurd, contradictory statements he managed to make.

I hope he gets fined for this.

[Elspin]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441480]I can't really think of much recently (particularly during the election run-up) that I saw left leaning individuals falling for that was clearly bullshit. What I can remember seeing would largely be small, pretty pointless things.

In comparison we had the literal horde of /pol/ and /r/the_donald shitting out fake "news" and "fact" memes constantly, to the point that they were actually being picked up by the general public (like the whole "Hillary laughed about defending a rapist!!!" and "KKK GRAND WIZARD KISSED HILLARY!!!" photoshop). Which Trumps online support just ate up because despite it all being frankly ludicrous, it fed into their preconceived notion she was actually Satan incarnate.[/QUOTE]

It was less grand conspiracy theories and more just smear stories with no evidence whatsoever. That type of thing is pretty popular across the whole political spectrum IMO.

[OmniConsUme]

[QUOTE=Tamschi;51441526]There was that whole 'trump voters are all racist' thing, but I guess that falls more under insult/opinion.
The amount of distinct fake stories was orders of magnitude lower from the left, that's for sure.[/QUOTE]

Now it's the Alt-Right are all Neo-Nazis

[Omesh]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441480]I can't really think of much recently (particularly during the election run-up) that I saw left leaning individuals falling for that was clearly bullshit. What I can remember seeing would largely be small, pretty pointless things.

In comparison we had the literal horde of /pol/ and /r/the_donald shitting out fake "news" and "fact" memes constantly, to the point that they were actually being picked up by the general public (like the whole "Hillary laughed about defending a rapist!!!" and "KKK GRAND WIZARD KISSED HILLARY!!!" photoshop). Which Trumps online support just ate up because despite it all being frankly ludicrous, it fed into their preconceived notion she was actually Satan incarnate.[/QUOTE]

She was, in fact, kissed by someone who had been in the kkk (Robert Byrd). Also praised him on video.

You can't say him being in kkk 70 years ago doesn't matter, but blast David Duke (and in extension Trump) as being kkk at the same time (around 40 years ago for him).

[hexpunK]

[QUOTE=Omesh;51441878]She was, in fact, kissed by someone who had been in the kkk (Robert Byrd). Also praised him on video.

You can't say him being in kkk 70 years ago doesn't matter, but blast David Duke (and in extension Trump) as being kkk at the same time (around 40 years ago for him).[/QUOTE]

I'm well aware of the actual history of the dude.

Byrd however totally renounced his KKK days, unlike what the image was portraying. The image is purposefully trying to lull the viewer into thinking he was still an active KKK member who was supporting Clinton as a KKK member, and not as a reformed man who has stopped believing in that shit.

David Duke however is still a top-tier bigot;
[quote="Sourced from his Wikipedia bio"]Duke speaks against what he describes as Jewish control of the Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. federal government, and the media. Duke supports the preservation of what he considers to be Western culture and traditionalist Christian family values, abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, voluntary racial segregation, anti-communism, and white separatism.[/quote]
and started fucking Stormfront. Duke is still a total cunt.

[Govna]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441480]I can't really think of much recently (particularly during the election run-up) that I saw left leaning individuals falling for that was clearly bullshit. What I can remember seeing would largely be small, pretty pointless things.

In comparison we had the literal horde of /pol/ and /r/the_donald shitting out fake "news" and "fact" memes constantly, to the point that they were actually being picked up by the general public (like the whole "Hillary laughed about defending a rapist!!!" and "KKK GRAND WIZARD KISSED HILLARY!!!" photoshop). Which Trumps online support just ate up because despite it all being frankly ludicrous, it fed into their preconceived notion she was actually Satan incarnate.[/QUOTE]

This. I saw justified concern more than anything among left-wingers about his aggressive statements and tactics, his utterly ridiculous beliefs about climate change and science, his deplorable remarks about Muslims and Hispanics, the advisors and transition team members he was surrounding himself, his buffoonish behavior and posturing to secure the support of right-wingers, etc.

With regards to /pol/ and /r/the_donald, what they did was honestly brilliant. It was so basic, but it was so effective. And it spread like wildfire too. No only did it rile up the people who already supported and were sympathetic to Trump, there's no doubt either that it also helped to steer some of the undecideds away from her and in his direction too.

It made me think of Mein Kampf when Hitler was discussing propaganda: [i]"All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. . . . It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction, for instance. The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in sloans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out."[/i]

[editline]28th November 2016[/editline]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441912]David Duke however is still a top-tier bigot;

and started fucking Stormfront. Duke is still a total cunt.[/QUOTE]

Also this. It's too bad nobody's given him the George Lincoln Rockwell treatment yet.

[Omesh]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441912]I'm well aware of the actual history of the dude.

Byrd however totally renounced his KKK days, unlike what the image was portraying. The image is purposefully trying to lull the viewer into thinking he was still an active KKK member who was supporting Clinton as a KKK member, and not as a reformed man who has stopped believing in that shit.

David Duke however is still a top-tier bigot;

and started fucking Stormfront. Duke is still a total cunt.[/QUOTE]

Well I don't know that image, but since that's anecdotal evidence then I'll say I saw many things like that on the opposite side too. Just wanted to say that about kkk, as I constantly saw Duke=kkk=Trump being brought up, but they are both not kkk.

Duke has a different worldview from you, needless to say. I believe this quote is [URL="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/"]relevant [/URL]. As far as I know, he's not endorsing violence, so don't care at all about the supposed immorality of the issues he raises. There's things I'd like to know myself that will never be answered because of that, which is annoying, so related aspects of society are automatically set into doubt in my view.

[QUOTE=Govna;51441964]Also this. It's too bad nobody's given him the George Lincoln Rockwell treatment yet.[/QUOTE]

That's edgy boy. I too think my (non-violent) ideological opponents deserve to be assassinated. Everything for equality.

[Sgman91]

I would say that the left is much better at spinning stories and running with totally unverified 'witness' testimonies than making fake news. The whole Michael Brown situation, for example, was, and still is, pushed by a ton of left-wing people as an example of police brutality.

Another example would be the whole movement to paint Brannon as an anti-semite. It's fabricated in every sense of the word.

[Chonch]

[QUOTE=Lyonidis;51441188]There needs to be hard legislation against faux news if there isn't already.[/QUOTE]
Ah, but wouldn't that violate the 1st Amendment?

[garbage ellie]

[QUOTE=hexpunK;51441480]I can't really think of much recently (particularly during the election run-up) that I saw left leaning individuals falling for that was clearly bullshit. What I can remember seeing would largely be small, pretty pointless things.
[/QUOTE]

there was a lot of that, especially on the anti r/the_donald subreddit, EnoughTrumpSpam. I fell for a bit of it myself until I started to actually google stuff. There where things talking about how trump was heavily racist, sexist, etc, in a lot of the things he used to say during the 90's, especially in his books, that are found to not exist at all, but still got used a lot in the subreddit, especially a 'quote' from his book talking about “I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day… . I think the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.“ Which is in one of the top rated posts on the subreddit :v:

[Tamschi]

[QUOTE=Chonch;51442068]Ah, but wouldn't that violate the 1st Amendment?[/QUOTE]

I'd assume so, at least by the US interpretation of freedom of speech.
(Even in Germany not all fake stories aren't immediately punishable though. Only very specific kinds of defamation and insults are illegal.)

Over here, news outlets and other publications can be somewhat easily forced to publish a correction by any damaged party though (and that of equal size to the original story), and can be fined if a claim is repeated or continues to be made available after they were hit by a restraining order.
I somewhat doubt you have quite the same protections over there though, and it would be much more expensive to pursue those claims judicially.

[Tamschi]

[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51442153]If that's the case then we need to fight fire with fire until it's illegal.[/QUOTE]

That is probably [del]not a good[/del] [editline]edit[/editline] a terrible idea. There are already regularly riots in the USA in large parts due to misinformation.
The effect is also extremely politically slanted, as mentioned before. Outrageous fake news won't easily gain traction unless they support divisive ideals.

[Govna]

[QUOTE=Omesh;51442038]That's edgy boy. I too think my (non-violent) ideological opponents deserve to be assassinated. Everything for equality.[/QUOTE]

And this is stupid. David Duke is [b]not[/b] non-violent. The Stormfront community in general which he actively participates in has problems with violence. You should actually, you know, check them out sometime before commenting on things which you have no understanding. I recommend their "Self-Defense, Martial Arts, & Preparedness" subforum for starters, but their philosophical, political, and cultural subforums also have plenty of fuckwits advocating everything from outright genocide to one-on-one killing of people they perceive as racial and political enemies. For that matter, look up Duke's involvement with [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Dog]Operation Red Dog[/url]. He collaborated with Don Black, the founder of Stormfront, on it.

We're talking about a group of people who openly advocate, again, everything from genocide and violence against minorities for no other reason than because they're minorities to a white nationalist dictatorship seizing power (by force if necessary) in the United States. They and their ideology is not compatible with our society and the principles which it's supposedly based around. There is absolutely no reason to be tolerant of them or their beliefs; it's counter-intuitive to extend them such courtesy given the circumstances.

[Raidyr]

[QUOTE=sgman91;51442053]I would say that the left is much better at spinning stories and running with totally unverified 'witness' testimonies than making fake news. The whole Michael Brown situation, for example, was, and still is, pushed by a ton of left-wing people as an example of police brutality.

Another example would be the whole movement to paint Brannon as an anti-semite. It's fabricated in every sense of the word.[/QUOTE]

Both sides of the political spectrum lie, "the right" isn't morally superior to "the left".