Vanessa Baird writes on the strange mutations of ‘fake news’
There’s nothing new about fake or junk news or ‘alternative facts’.
But today’s scale, speed and viral penetration of falsehood via social media is unprecedented. So is its profitability, as Macedonian teenagers from the rustbelt town of Veles discovered when they set up fake news sites pushing out stories they had made up about Donald Trump (like the Pope was backing him) during the US election.
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