How Macedonia Became A Global Hub For Pro-Trump Misinformation

[G_j]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.nveQ0WreN#.iox3PLqZX

BuzzFeed News identified more than 100 pro-Trump websites being run from a single Macedonian town.

Posted on November 3, 2016, at 7:02 p.m.

"This is the news of the millennium!" said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.

"Your Prayers Have Been Answered," declared the headline.

For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.

Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small Macedonian town, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.

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The young Macedonians who run these sites don't care about Donald Trump. They are responding to straightforward economic incentives: As Facebook regularly reveals in earnings reports, a US Facebook user is worth about four times a user outside the US. The fraction-of-a-penny-per-click of U.S. display advertising — a declining market for American publishers — goes a long way in Veles. Several teens and young men who run these sites told BuzzFeed News that they learned the best way to generate traffic is to get their politics stories to spread on Facebook — and the best way to generate shares on Facebook is to publish sensationalist and often false content that caters to Trump supporters.

[Foggyhill]

1. Good old capitalism in the service of propaganda

[grabber]

2. This does not surprise me at all

I troll on the news sites pretending to be a republican. My posts are close to over the top unbelievable and it used to astound me how many times republicans would take me as serious.

[G_j]

3. k