The Fake News Factory

Veles is a small town in the middle of Macedonia. Once upon a time, this was a bustling city full of industry. Once Macedonia had gotten its independence from Yugoslavia, the city had begun to decline. With a population of 55,000, factories began to close and many people lost their jobs. The annual income is only $4,800.

These days, this quiet town started making a name for itself. Buzzfeed revealed more than 100 pro-Trump websites traced back to Veles. These websites are full of clickbait titles and sensationalism- or in other words, fake news. As discussed on an earlier post, there are many reasons why people are motivated to create these fake stories, economic opportunities being one of the big ones. That's exactly what is inspiring the teens of Veles to use their time to fabricate these stories. 

While many of these stories are pro-Trump, it's interesting to know that most of these teens in reality don't really care or support Trump. They claim that he is the most popular to write about as his stories tend to go viral and his followers are 'no joke' when it comes to social media. While many will argue that this is deceitful or wrong- Veles has benefited from these fake news stories. People quit school and their jobs to dedicate themselves to writing and posting articles as doing so brings them a lot of money. 

Veles does not have much to offer these teens, so why not? One teen says ""The Americans loved our stories and we make money from them. Who cares if they are true or false?""

http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/video-embed/828602947943 [VIDEO]

As one teen from the video above, Dimitri, explained, "I know who is responsible for the election, it’s the American people. I think the American people don’t take their politics not as serious as other countries do. No offense to Americans, we don’t believe such hoax news." In a way, he isn't wrong. People have the power to choose what to and what not to read and believe, but the tricky part is that some people like to believe what they already hold to be true, confirmation bias as noted from before. So while Dimitri claims their stories didn't sway the U.S election, could it be that it did have some effect, big or small? 

Of course, now that these teens found a system that worked, it’s definitely not going to stop now just because the U.S election is over. There are elections in Germany and France coming up too and who’s to say that fake news won't target these places too? Some nations are afraid of Russian hacking (the Netherlands is even using paper ballots for their election), but is fake news so powerful that it will be another addition to their fears? These are questions that don't have a real answer yet. 

On the other side of the spectrum, there is someone trying to fight the fake news coming from Macedonia. Saska Cvetkovska, an investigative journalist from Skopje, Macedonia's capital, is doing just that. She and two of her colleagues had even created an online database that shows the ownership behind news websites in Macedonia. While it's become for tough to dictate what is real and fact, they are working on a Chrome extension that could do a similar job. 

Cvetkovska reminds everyone that the problem with fake news is not something that emerged out of the Trump Era, but that it’s always been there. 

She says, ""It forced you guys in the United States to think about this. And it's a good thing that you think about this, because somehow, we can make a change"

And it has forced the U.S to think. Companies like Google and Facebook are trying to create ways to detect fake news. The question is, will this be enough, or will the government have to get involved too? 

That's a topic for another time.

— Stay tuned, Ace