For example, the most successful post BuzzFeed News found from a Macedonian site is based on a story from a fake news website. The headline on the story from ConservativeState.com was “Hillary Clinton In 2013: ‘I Would Like To See People Like Donald Trump Run For Office; They’re Honest And Can’t Be Bought.’” The post is a week old and has racked up an astounding 480,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. (To put that into perspective, the New York Times’ exclusive story that revealed Donald Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns generated a little more than 175,000 Facebook interactions in a month.)
The viral Clinton story was sourced from TheRightists.com, a site that admits it publishes both real and fake content. According to emails released by WikiLeaks, Clinton said in a private speech to Goldman Sachs that she would like to see more successful business people enter politics. But she did not mention Donald Trump in any way. The quote used in the headline is false.
Four of the five most successful posts from the Macedonian sites BuzzFeed News identified are false. They include the false claim that the pope endorsed Trump, and the false claim that Mike Pence said Michelle Obama is the “most vulgar first lady we’ve ever had.” Those four posts together generated more than 1 million shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. That resulted in huge traffic and significant ad revenue for the owners of these sites, with many people being misinformed along the way.
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