The project’s research was featured in The Telegraph.
Intended fake news sites, according to Philip Howard, a professor at Oxford university’s internet institute, are split between the purely ideological and those driven by cash – hoping to maximise clicks on their link or site to secure advertising dollars. It’s impossible to tell the difference on Facebook, of course.
Just before the election, online news teams discovered that hundreds of fake news sites were operating from the Macedonian town of Veles – population 45,000. One young site founder claimed to earn “$5,000 per month – or $3000 on a good day.” He said the Veles sites experimented with pro-Bernie Sanders content but “people in America prefer to read news about Trump.”
