Considering that American's trust in mainstream media is an all time low [1], I'm sure there is a big demand for alternative news. I'm not surprised people are looking for content that fits their narrative and end up reading fake articles. As someone observing from Mexico, I noticed almost all of the mainstream US media became an echo chamber for pro-Clinton content. I only realized this after after seeing how Sander…
But now, there seems to be a whole slew: hundreds of these weird little websites out there, generating crazy crazy fake news, sharing them around, and disseminating them, for the purpose of gaining ad-revenue from gullible conservatives. The side effect is something like a palm-oil land-clearing project, where a whole forest gets burned down, and everyone downwind is choking on the smoke and ash.
I think this is because of the corrosive effect of money in politics. So many billions of dollars going into political ads. So many very conservative elites, investing in major media channels and directing editorial content. Causing a major collapse in credibility of ALL major news networks, which creates an ecosystem for these little sites to pop up.
The problem is all the seriously delusional people who believe these stories about muslims marching to YOUR neighborhood to demand sharia law, and Hillary Clinton being a secret KKK member.