How Fake News Affected the 2016 Presidential Election

Russian trolls are state-sponsored anonymous internet content creators who covertly organize and participate in Russian and international political blogs and internet forums. Russian bots orchestrate large-scale trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda. But the goal of Russia’s troll army is less sophisticated than what people think. Instead of promoting a preferred candidate, Russian actors exploit pre-existing divisions in Western societies to stoke outrage, and erode social cohesion and Americans’ confidence in institutions of democracy. America’s controversial history of race relations, growing wealth inequality, and political polarization are fertile ground for Russia to scatter seeds of disinformation and propaganda. 

• Internet trolls post inflammatory and digressive, extraneous or off-topic messages in an online community with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses for a specific gain. Trolling can also mean targeted online harassment. 

Russian actors who weaponize information use the same “political warfare” techniques that their Soviet predecessors used over a century ago. Soviet-style “active measures” or psychological warfare techniques include covert media placement, forgery, deploying agents of influence, “friendship” societies, and front organizations. 

But disinformation has become an ever-higher art form. The Internet and social media allow disruption in other countries’ elections on a massive scale never before seen. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a 50,000-strong army of Russian bots promoted conspiracy theories and fake news by mimicking content that already existed within far-right and extremist online communities.

A fake doesn't have to be good to be effective. Strategically placed misinformation can sow confusion, doubt and conspiracy theories among voters. 

The infamous Pizzagate conspiracy was the work of 12 Russian GRU agents who operated the website DCLeaks that published thousands of hacked emails stolen from the DNC. Far-right extremists on the anonymous internet forum 4chann, who were amplified by Russian bots on Twitter, falsely claimed the hacked emails contained coded messages that showed high-ranking Democratic officials were involved in human trafficking and pedophilia. Russian trolls exploited pre-existing channels to push the conspiracies of fringe extremists into mainstream media coverage.

Guccifer 2.0, a persona donned by Russian hackers, broke into the DNC network to retrieve selectively-provocative emails that bashed then-candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. These emails were published on WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, three days before the Democratic National Convention with the aim of deepening division in the party between Clinton’s and Sanders’ supporters. The email hack led to the resignation of the party's chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller pursued an indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers for hacking the DNC network, further confirming Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election.

Fake news websites deliberately publish hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation and use social media to draw attention and drive web traffic. The fabricated stories featured on these websites are intentionally created to mislead readers either for monetary profit, or for more nefarious reasons, such as disinformation campaigns. Fake news creators coordinate disinformation campaigns to coincide with political events--they know that outrageous and extraordinary claims are more likely to be believed during a political crisis

Fake news websites often post clickbait articles that carry exaggerated, misleading, or fake titles as a method to persuade readers to view content on their website. Out-of-context or manipulated images can confer a sense of legitimacy to a website or article.

Fake news websites often use impersonation and pose as legitimate news organizations to gain readers’ trust. Sometimes internet trolls can completely copy an existing website down to its name and authors, and can trick readers into believing the website is an official organization, such as Bloomberg or CNN. com. 

Many fake news sites operate under a veil of obscurity whereby the names of authors and reporters are not included or difficult to discern. Fake news creators often use an alias or no name at all. 

Typosquatting is a form of internet cybersquatting, which is based on the probability that a certain number of internet users will mistype the name of a popular site while surfing the internet. Typosquatters monitor how many clicks a mistaken domain name receives and uses the data to sell advertising for the sites that receive a high volume of accidental traffic. Another form of typosquatting occurs when fake news websites create a nearly identical domain name to that of a legitimate U.S. news publication. For example, by creating the domain CNNnews.com.co, trolls rely on readers not verifying the address they typed in or clicked on. This occurs frequently on social media where linked articles that are infrequently checked by readers take them to a fake site that appears real. 

• During the last three months of the 2016 election, the top 20 fake news stories had 8,711,000 shares, reaction and comments, while the top 20 real news stories only received 7,367,000. 
• Approximately 115 pro-Trump fake stories were shared on Facebook a total of 30 million times, and 41 pro-Clinton stories were shares a total of 7.6 million times. 

Examples of fake news websites: 

• RealTrueNews was created by Marco Chacon to prove to his alt-right friends their gullibility. A fake transcript of one of then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s leaked speeches was reported as factual by Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who later apologized and retracted the story. Other phrases invented by Chacon were also repeated in the news media.
• MediaFetcher.com is a fake news website generator that provides templates for creating false stories about celebrities.
• Huzlers is a satire website that has received criticism for blurring the line between satire and fake news, and has been fact checked by Snopes over 20 times. 
• National Report & News Examiner both profited heavily from click-bait articles. The owner reported that he made $10,000 a month through ads linked to fake news. The sites’ articles were so effective because articles appeared legitimate early on, but eventually grew more absurd as the reader progressed through the story.