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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 24 2016, @03:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the peeling-the-onion dept.

The Washington Post published an interview [...] with Paul Horner, who has made his living off of writing viral news hoaxes on sites like Facebook for the past several years. "But in recent months, Horner has found the fake-news ecosystem growing more crowded, more political and vastly more influential: In March, Donald Trump's son Eric and his then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, even tweeted links to one of Horner's faux-articles. His stories have also appeared as news on Google."

Although Horner compares himself to parody and satire sites like The Onion (though less obvious), he's now concerned about the influence of fake news. A few excerpts from the interview:

On why he has seen greater popularity recently:

Honestly, people are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore — I mean, that's how Trump got elected. He just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything, and when the things he said turned out not to be true, people didn't care because they'd already accepted it. It's real scary. I've never seen anything like it.

How he thinks people should treat his fake news:

I thought they'd fact-check it, and it'd make them look worse. I mean that's how this always works: Someone posts something I write, then they find out it's false, then they look like idiots. [... But] they just keep running with it! They never fact-check anything!

On the recent push by Facebook and Google to target fake news sites:

Yeah, I mean — a lot of the sites people are talking about, they're just total BS sites. There's no creativity or purpose behind them. I'm glad they're getting rid of them. I don't like getting lumped in with Huzlers. I like getting lumped in with the Onion. The stuff I do — I spend more time on it. There's purpose and meaning behind it. I don't just write fake news just to write it.

[...] I'm glad they're getting rid of those sites. I just hope they don't get rid of mine, too.

Related reporting from Alternet.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @09:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @09:00PM (#432590)

    No, there is too much bad blood between the liberals and what use to be their core.

    Short of an entire makeover, I think their influence is dwindling as much as the religious right.

    And given the supreme arrogance shown by most of the left still, they are too stupid to realize it.

    I anticipate some other party without as much baggage to take their place.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:42AM (#432733)

    That's just wishful thinking.

    Democrats overwhelmingly won with those 45 and under.

    This "bad blood" is with the generations heading into the grave.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @09:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @09:08AM (#432795)

      Buy the time the Baby Boomers are a foot in the grave, the young, liberal leaning Millennials will be bitter, world-weary republicans, like every generation that has been burned by DNC lies.

      How's that hope and change doin' ya?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @10:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @10:03PM (#433008)

        Actually, political party preferences are very sticky. Sure there are defectors. But people tend to stick with the same party once they make the mental commitment.