How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News
This is the news of the millennium!? said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.
?Your Prayers Have Been Answered,? declared the headline.
For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.
Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.
Four of the five most successful posts from the Macedonian sites BuzzFeed News identified are false. They include the false claim that the pope endorsed Trump, and the false claim that Mike Pence said Michelle Obama is the ?most vulgar first lady we?ve ever had.? Those four posts together generated more than 1 million shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.
That resulted in huge traffic and significant ad revenue for the owners of these sites, with many people being misinformed along the way.