The Fake News Machine - Inside a Town Gearing Up for 2020

[IronLionZion]

http://money.cnn.com/interactive/media/the-macedonia-story/?iid=hp-toplead-dom

Veles used to make porcelain for the whole of Yugoslavia. Now it makes fake news.

This sleepy riverside town in Macedonia is home to dozens of website operators who churn out bogus stories designed to attract the attention of Americans. Each click adds cash to their bank accounts.

The scale is industrial: Over 100 websites were tracked here during the final weeks of the 2016 U.S. election campaign, producing fake news that mostly favored Republican candidate for President Donald Trump.

Here's a look inside the city’s fake news machine as it gears up for 2020:

One of the shadowy industry's pioneers is a soft-spoken law school dropout. Worried that his online accounts could be shut down, the 24-year-old asked to be known only as Mikhail.

He takes on a different persona at night, prowling the internet as "Jesica," an American who frequently posts pro-Trump memes on Facebook.

The website and Facebook page that "Jesica" runs caters to conservative readers in the U.S.

The stories are political — and often wrong on the facts. But that doesn't concern Mikhail.

There is a lot of multimedia and images at the link. Gives some insight to what we have to deal with.

[lunasun]

1. K&R Very good read . Thanks