What a crazy world.
The idea was simple enough: publish as many absurd, obviously fake stories imaginable, and see if anyone actually falls for it. The results of this experiment were both fascinating and disheartening.
“BREAKING: Satire Makes Fools Of Gullible Trump Supporters.”
That’s the headline James McDaniel published on his intentionally fake news website, UndergroundNewsReport.com, earlier this month.
Within just two weeks of his website going online, McDaniel had already amassed more than a million views, thousands of comments on his stories, and hundreds of thousands of “likes” and “shares” on Facebook.
“While writing them, I was aiming for stories that no one would believe, but rather would be satirical in an age where disinformation is so prevalent,” McDaniel wrote on his website. “Just for fun, I decided to post some of the stories in Trump fan groups on Facebook to see the reactions.”
One fake story, headlined “Wikileaks: Obama Ran Pedophile Ring Out Of Whitehouse” amassed more than 40,000 views. Published in February, the top comment reads:
“I believe it. They are scum. Down with the obama’s his it wife (sic) are him took 111 million dollars worth of stuff that should be repaid back to the taxpayers. Back to America.”
McDaniel created fake news suggesting Michelle Obama had a sex change and Barack Obama tweeted out that “Trump must be removed by any means necessary.”
“To my surprise, the Trump masses embraced my stories as fact, almost universally,” McDaniel wrote. “It seemed that there wasn’t anything I could write that was too wild or outrageous to be believed by this particular audience.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When I first read about this a couple of days ago, I laughed. After I reflected a bit, I was depressed.
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My sentiments exactly, GregB. Depressing is putting it lightly.
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It is this sort of garbage that helps to give the print media the lousy reputation that they share with the TV commentators who falsely describe themselves as journalists. It only proves Trump’s point: you cannot trust all the media…fake news aka lies. are prolific.
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Are you kidding? I find it troubling that so many people unquestioningly accepted these stories without hesitation. Believing this stuff is akin to believing the old checkout line tabloids that regaled us with equally implausible scenarios.
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FYI: Those magazines are still in the grocery store lines.
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Yup., although somehow people seem to think online adds validity.
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Right on, right on, speduktr! (James Brown said it better than I ever could.)
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I believe the checkout tabloids is where Trump gets his news. The headlines only, since reading the whole article is to-o-o-o taxing.
I (true) did read online somewhere about how Obama was really a woman.
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During the campaign, Trump quoted the National Enquirer as his source about his claim that Ted Cruz’s father was part of the plot to kill JFK. A friend of his owns the National Enquirer. He called it a reputable source.
What I don’t get is why Cruz went to dinner with Trump recently at the WH. It must be very lonely there as Melania and Barron live in the penthouse in NYC.
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The National Enquirer articles on Bigfoot were fake?
Now I am really depressed.
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April–
You missed the point of the satirical news site. Not all news is fake. I read foreign and US news sources. In a democracy it is your responsibility to be an informed, critical reader. When I read stories I look for sources and facts that can be independently verified. There are many accurate news sources. Trump constantly embarrasses himself by his poor reading comprehension and ignorance of basic information. What’s fascinating is that liberal readers tend to not fall for these ridiculous stories, so it’s LESS profitable to run a website that discusses public policy, corruption, tax laws (so-called liberal leaning) fact based stories. Trump is a liar and incompetent businessman. He’s such a poor credit risk that US banks will not loan him money. Most people in the world would rather die than think. The important stories that really affect people’s lives are not lurid enough to attract the general population.
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You are right I am going to discontinue all my subscriptions and just pick up the National Enquirer at the supermarket when I go to pick up toilet paper. If it is good enough for you and Donald it is good enough for me.
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No 1:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/477208338/literally-piss-on-donald-trump-toilet?utm_campaign=shopping_us_VinylAndInk4U_sfc_osa&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_custom1=0&utm_content=10806496&gclid=Cj0KEQiAgJTGBRDLr5_az_Ouk44BEiQAIxaA4kdonZK3PNtH7AeRC6e9jwfvrTdC2ya2W_oFJCpsPZ4aAjzk8P8HAQ
No. 2: (but I hear it chafes badly and leaves orange streaks)
https://www.wish.com/c/575fb95af29d5b63245474ad?hide_login_modal=true&from_ad=pla4&_display_country_code=US&gclid=Cj0KEQiAgJTGBRDLr5_az_Ouk44BEiQAIxaA4mbax5OUXLPTDpSW616JEzvMIGGOaMS1D-4BDpzXXvcaAks68P8HAQ
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Greg,
Some friends gave me an Xmas gift of a roll of poop bags for the dog, emblazoned with that face.
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This country has been Common Cored and TESTED to DEATH. Few can think anymore.
America is GRATING!
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You are so right Yvonne. The common core is dumbing down. Google deliberately dumbing down with Charlotte Iserbyte which tells about the horrible common cure in schools. It is nice to see someone awake!.
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With all due respect to your dislike of common core and testing, I feel it important to suggest that none of this behavior on the part of readers without critical skills should be laid at the feet of anything in education. We cannot afford to follow our students through their lives as they become citizens.
The rumor mill is not new. Jean Paul Marat inflamed the French in Paris with false news. Phillip Freneau wrote things about George Washington that were absurd. Politicians of their day used their words for power. Can we forget the Hearst Papers and the dawn of American Imperialism?
This is not to say that we should not try. Students should have to separate fact from fiction. Teachers should not have to avoid collective guilt just because some do not want to think that their attitudes produce evil.
But what we do in education is not evidenced until a generation has at least come to maturity. The generation that has come through NCLB is getting there. When they do blanket statements about who they are will be out of line. Some specific observations may be necessary.
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Yeah, and the newspapers said Thomas Jefferson had children by a slave girl, the half-sister of his wife. Oh…. wait.
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Can’t blame this one on Common Core. Ignorance has been rampant for quite some time.
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All of those fake stories are old conspiracy theories already circulated for many months, in some cases several years. This web site wasn’t doing anything innovative now. Like purposely making up new stories to test it out – which might have some value. Of course they got huge traffic. They were simply piggybacking on the success of other fake news by coming up in searches for those conspiracy theories that someone read in one place and was looking for confirmation – which they probably believed they got. Just mentioning already circulating conspiracy theories on your site is bound to attract search traffic. It’s the first thing people do when they hear some story, they look it up on the internet. I’m not really sure playing games like this is helpful, but I’m sure it can make some good ad revenue profit for the testers.
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You’re right. Those stories have been going around for awhile. I’d be interested to know how many views there were with no comment made. The vast majority are looking out of curiosity, but know right away that it’s fake. This “experiment” doesn’t prove anything. You’ll get the same result whether you “test” conservatives or progressives.
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I think somewhere they did see evidence that fake news stories appealing to conservatives got more clicks. So that’s why the Macedonians or whoever decided to stick with mostly that. But that also doesn’t prove that people with conservative views are more likely to believe fake stories. It might just mean they’re more likely to click.
I know someone who is progressive and occasionally watches Infowars for entertainment. So not all that youtube channel’s views are from people who agree with that guy.
Sure there are people who believe all sorts of things. Others who say they believe all sorts of things and maybe really don’t believe them but hope someone else will.
But I bet there’s totally more people who click out of curiosity.
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Back in the 50s someone ran the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution aka the Bill of Rights past a lot of people in Florida stripped of identification. “Sounds like Communism to me” was the common response. We might have written that off as an urban legend but now we know it wasn’t, don’t we?
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I believe that was part of the distortion of the George Smathers campaign vs. Claude Pepper senate race.
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Oh, yeah, Claude Pepper. Maybe it was just because it was in Florida.
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This is the whole danger of the Internet, open access information versus quality control, fact checking, etc. It’s good to get over this hurdle before facing the myriad challenges that will come with the various avenues of articificial intelligence and highly automated living, as long as we do actually get over the hurdle and not fall under it, in which case, we’ll all be in deep doo doo soon, if not already. I think we’ll beat this thing. I think the orangutan will get himself thrown out of office, and this whole mess will be a valuable, enduring and persistently current lesson for generations to come.
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Akademos, You know that the invisible power in spreading anything on the internet comes from the algorithms and the people who create these. Google shoves news recommendations at me and has made my internet searches more difficult by assuming that my spelling should match some algorithm. The human beings who create and then tweak the algorithms are unknown to us, but for an indication of some tricks of the trade, visit the website mathbabe.
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While we may panic at the scary numbers attracted to Trump sites, we should keep in mind that media outlets which have a long history of being respected truth-seeking sources say that they are ALSO experiencing an unusual growth in viewers and readership.
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artificial intelligence
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Similar things happened to Bernie supporters during the campaign, so don’t laugh too hard at Trump’s supporters.
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One person who already knew this long before was Trump himself. If Trump saw this posting he would probably chuckle and say “So they finally caught on!”
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Trump knows little to nothing. He careens from moment to moment hurdling accusations and first grade level (sight word vocabulary) insults (sad, bad) at people. Trump does not have the intellectual complexity and emotion self-control to be a master manipulation. I doubt Trump has a fully functioning frontal lobe; he seems to be operating with his reptilian brain.
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I love this comment to the Obama pedophile ring story
Mama Lioness February 22, 2017 at 5:45 am
There have been hundreds pf arrests on Pizzagate. Wikileaks has never been wrong once in 10 years. They’re not the scum you are! They rape, torture and eat children. They offer them up as sacrifices. There are household names that will be revealed. Republicans and Democrats in Congress past and present who are a part of Pizzagate.
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Mate,
Reminds us that there are many insane people in the nation who may never have voted before. At last they found a candidate willing to pander to them or to act like them. Trump plans to cut mental health services, so there will be more of them.
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“Bigfoot gate”
The pediphile* ring
Of Bigfoot and his mama
Was really quite a thing
With Clinton and Obama
With Bigfeet they would meet
On Monday and on Sunday
And utilize the feet
Of Bigfoot for their fun day
*Not a misspelling. pediphilia is love of feet, especially big ones
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Just another sterling example of the best kakistocracy that Russian petro-rubles can buy. Twitler’s voting enablers are truly the under-educated. And the rest of us are paying the consequences!
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Well, let’s not get too impressed with how smart we are.
People who worked on Sander’s campaign say there was a deluge of fake news posted about Clinton and many Sanders supported believed it:
“Cowling, a retired postal worker, said some of her Facebook group members were ready to believe the bogus news links. “People were so anti-Hillary that no matter what you said, they were willing to share it and spread it,” she said. “At first I would just laugh about it. I would say, ‘C’mon, this is beyond ridiculous.’ I created a word called ‘ridiculosity.’ I would say, ‘This reeks of ridiculosity.’”
But Cowling got pushback. She was called a “Hillbot” and a Trump supporter. She ended up removing dozens of members who refused to stop pushing conspiracy theories. “I lost quite a few friends,” she said.”
Looks like liberals can be fooled too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_58c34d97e4b0ed71826cdb36?
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Trump’s lies about Hillary were nonstop. And they worked.
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Liberals or Progressives?
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Unfortunately, we are all inclined to believe news reports that agree with our own core beliefs without being as careful as we should be. It would be so nice to be able to believe what you read without having to vet everything. This fake news craze and corporate takeover of major media has made everyone a little paranoid. I see signs of journalists taking back their voice and the oh so important role they need to play in a “free” society. How do we encourage them?
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Gullible Trump supporters do not need James McDaniel to publish intentional fake news, they are doing alright on their own. I find his “just for fun” reports dangerous and stupid, like pouring gasoline with a lit cigarette in your mouth. The country is in the throws of trying to sort thing out with this lunatic in the White House, we don’t need a pot stirrer journalist to add to the confusion. Poor choice for Huffington Post reporter Sebastian Murdock for giving attention to such light weight journalism.
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WHAT THIS LITTLE STUNT DID WAS TO REINFORCE IN THE MINDS OF ALL THOSE WHO VENTURED THERE THAT ALL OF WHAT THEY HAD READ WAS TRUE AS IT WAS ANOTHER ‘SOURCE’. IT IS TOO BAD THAT THE WEBSITE COULD NOT CONTACT ALL THOSE VIEWERS AND TELL THEM THAT THEY HAD BEEN ‘PRANKED’ AND SUGGEST TO THEM THAT IT WAS PROBABLY NOT THE FIRST TIME.
I believe that those folk, if convinced that they had been ‘had’, would be enough angry so as to vote differently next time, AND THAT IS WHAT COUNTS GOING FORWARD!!
Just drain the swamp of liars.
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So that’s what Trump does until 3:00 AM every morning before his daily Twitter rant.
The malignant narcissist in the White House trolls the internet looking for alternative news and then logs repeatedly in-and-out of his sock puppet accounts to get the view counts up. His little fingers must be really fast on that little keyboard unless he has an automated app that does it for him.
In fact, I’ve heard from millions of people, millions and millions and millions all over the world, that Trump never reads/watches anything except Breitbart and Fox news and that’s what he counts as his daily intel briefing. And while he is reading/watching, he is on his pogo-stick leaping up and down, up and down, up and down to the tune of millions of people singing “Keep America Trumpland Forever while he molests only the female children of liberals who deserve to be molested for being the children of liberals.”
I think there should be thousands of alternative news sites that report only alternative news and facts about Trump. Let’s fight fire with fire.
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Just one of those items should do. Read ‘n’ Wipe……… or Wipe ‘n’ Read. Same outcome, so to speak.
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Good lord. That’s the scariest thing I’ve read in my life.
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