Feb 4, 2017

Fake news rises on left

Mike Allen, author of AM

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Fake news is rising on the "disempowered" left, at least partly because of wishful thinking. The Atlantic's Robinson Meyer discovered that progressives now face their "own kinds of hoaxes and fables":

  • "Twitter accounts purportedly operated by disgruntled government employees—@AltNatParSer, @RogueNASA, and the extra dubious @RoguePOTUSStaff—have swelled in number to become a shadow bureaucracy."
  • Brooke Binkowski, managing editor of the hoax-debunking Snopes, was asked if she had seen a spike in fake news aimed at liberals: "Of course yes! ... There's a lot of confusion, and people are profiting from the confusion on all sides of the continuum."
  • The Snopes editor, on advice for readers: "If it arouses an emotional response in you—if you see the headline and go, I can't believe this, I'm so angry—then it's probably something you need to check."

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