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We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

npr.org

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Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#21

Post by enraged_camel »

noobermin wrote: post #13
epicureanideal wrote: post #3

This was the most interesting part for me... -------- He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right. "The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction," Coler…

>the fake news was created by the left to discredit the alt-right I would say that this individual who was a liberal tried to do this. This isn't like a group of leftists conspiring to do (anti-)propaganda. It is pretty stupid, and his continuation of it is extremely confusing. Sorry, but a side rant to the more "entrepreneurial" startup-cats who browse here. Would you consider this fellow and others like him an entr…

The term "entrepreneur" is value-neutral. It refers to someone who successfully forms a business venture by noticing and taking advantage of an opportunity or need.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#22

Post by meritt »

Huh, weird, I actually looked into this exact same site (when it was being shared all across FB) and found something else telling -- a reused Google Adsense publisher tag ("ca-pub-1413743582782046") which I then found on a number of other sites: FireBrandLeft.com, NationalReport.net and some articles by this author http://www.liberalamerica.org/author/matt/ -- All were either owned by the same guy or he was a "journalist" at these other sites.

Except these all pointed back to the same individual: Matt Terzi

https://www.facebook.com/Mattterzi

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-terzi-aa6b4542

terzimatt@gmail.com

But then I lost interest and moved onto something else, guess I should have contacted NPR. I assume this is simply Jestin Coler's fake persona and I should have done some more digging.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#23

Post by fencepost »

icomefromreddit wrote: post #2

No need to look further, NPR...

> No need to look further, NPR...

If that's meant to imply that NPR publishes fake news, either you're a poorly done troll or you're exactly the sort that those fake news sites are targeted to. Just about everything "news" coming out of NPR can be well sourced, though that may be harder to do for investigative things like this story. Even for this one though I suspect there's enough information in the story to allow a qualified investigator to duplicate or verify their work.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#24

Post by knowaveragejoe »

caf wrote: post #5

The first "fake news" I remember seeing was about a year ago, and it was completely apolitical - it was a made-up story about a multiple-fatality car crash in my city. When I investigated the source, it had several exact copies of the same article, just set in different cities around the world. At the time I was completely bewildered as to the motive behind this, but I can only assume that it's the ad money, as paltr…

In that case it's likely a script generating these to catch people in google searches. "Fake news" for sure, but not politically motivated.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#25

Post by JKCalhoun »

epicureanideal wrote: post #3

This was the most interesting part for me... -------- He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right. "The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction," Coler…

> So in this case, the fake news was created by the left to discredit the alt-right, rather than by the alt-right to promote their views.

And so after the gullible rubes swallowed his bit of fake news hook line and sinker, he ran to tell the world.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#27

Post by aikah »

epicureanideal wrote: post #3

This was the most interesting part for me... -------- He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right. "The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction," Coler…

> publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction

Denounce those stories by making $30k a month as a spammer ? that's how this guy "denounces the alt-right" ? and NPR buys that argument just like that ?

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#29

Post by derrickdirge »

meritt wrote: post #22

Huh, weird, I actually looked into this exact same site (when it was being shared all across FB) and found something else telling -- a reused Google Adsense publisher tag ("ca-pub-1413743582782046") which I then found on a number of other sites: FireBrandLeft.com, NationalReport.net and some articles by this author http://www.liberalamerica.org/author/matt/ -- All were either owned by the same guy or he was a "journa…

Or "Jestin Coler" is just the name the author used to protect his real identity.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#30

Post by joshmn »

nickfromseattle wrote: post #14
caf wrote: post #5

The first "fake news" I remember seeing was about a year ago, and it was completely apolitical - it was a made-up story about a multiple-fatality car crash in my city. When I investigated the source, it had several exact copies of the same article, just set in different cities around the world. At the time I was completely bewildered as to the motive behind this, but I can only assume that it's the ad money, as paltr…

I was tricked by KNP7.com. If you search "Eminem moves to {city name}" the exact same article appears for multiple cities including Seattle, New York and probably dozens of other cities.

Taylor Swift, Miley, and the Biebs himself also moved to my hometown.
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