Post by crimsoncat05 on Dec 2, 2016 18:57:30 GMT
^^^ I heard this story when it aired, and I was completely flabbergasted that the guy didn't feel any sense of moral obligation whatsoever to at least make it clear that what he was doing was putting 'fake news' out there, considering the myriad potential negative consequences of perpetuating misinformation in this day and age. I found the whole thing really distasteful, to think that he chooses to make a living off of other people's ignorance and can sleep at night.
from the article:
<snip> "He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right.
"The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction," Coler says.
He was amazed at how quickly fake news could spread and how easily people believe it.... <snip>
Only problem is, I don't think I've ever seen the 'denouncing' part of it-- and it's practically impossible to keep it contained, once a story like this gets out there on the internet. Like the 'bussing in protestors' thing? Totally made up on the part of the guy who posted the tweet, just supposition because he saw a photo of some busses. But once it got on the internet, there was no getting it back, even after he found out it was untrue, and posted it as such on his twitter feed. By then, practically no one ever saw his 'it's not true' tweet, and the information was still being passed around as true.