In case you missed it, CBC News interviewed people who use bots to simulate popularity in the world of fake news. If you missed the report, you probably did NOT miss some of the headlines that brought fake news to public attention. According to some of the experts on the subject, including people who actually post fake news, among liberals college educated people are often heard repeating fake news accounts. Conservatives are just as guilty, except fewer college-educated people fall for what they read.
Bots take fake news stories and generate fake hits (in some cases by as much as 9,000 percent). People who see the fake news accounts post them on FB or tweet them, creating even more hits. The hits generate advertising requests, which create in some cases as much as $10,000 per month in revenue for the fake news accounts.
The guy who posted the story about Hillary Clinton having Parkinson’s Disease, was one of the people interviewed. He saw the news clip where Clinton appeared to stumble before getting into her limousine and decided she had Parkinson’s Disease. He admitted he spoke to no one in the Clinton campaign, but defended that by saying he wouldn’t trust anyone in her campaign. He also admitted that never spoke to a doctor or anyone else with knowledge about Clinton’s medical condition. Fake news? I dunno. How about NO news at all. How about fiction?
Because fake news is profitable, there is as much nonsense floating around the internet today as real news (abut 50/50). So, if you want to steer clear of sites known for posting fake news, CBS news has compiled a list of them with the fake news accounts they have run. Check it out. So the next time you share a news story, people don’t label you.
