# Some people will believe ANYTHING. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 11, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-will-believe-anything/781947 "2017-03-11T18:59:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-will-believe-anything/781947/1 "2017-03-11T18:59:16Z")
[Link](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fake-news-donald-trump-supporters-gullible-believe-anything-barack-obama-paedophile-hillary-clinton-a7623441.html). > [@](#): > > An American started a fake news website to see how ridiculous a story had to be before Donald Trump supporters realised it was untrue – and ended up concluding that some of them would believe absolutely anything. > > \ > > “When I started this site,” he wrote, “I had no idea that the stories would garner this much attention. > > “While writing them, I was aiming for stories that no one would believe, but rather would be satirical in an age where disinformation is so prevalent. > > “Just for fun, I decided to post some of the stories in Trump fan groups on Facebook to see the reactions. > > “To my surprise, the Trump masses embraced my stories as fact, almost universally. It seemed that there wasn’t anything I could write that was too wild or outrageous to be believed by this particular audience. The thing is, how do I know _The Independent_ isn’t fake news? I know some pretty rabid Trump supporters, and _they_ at least, will believe anything damaging to the other side. So the story seems plausible. Certainly _The Independent_ leans Left. But are its leanings enough to make it unreliable? ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-will-believe-anything/781947/2 "2017-03-11T19:09:50Z")
I believe the article was in the NY Times, I read an article where the reporter traveled to Macedonia to interview people who build fake news sites for a living. They do very well with the sites. It doesn’t take much effort, scan the evening news, make up some plausible sounding but very biased articles based on whatever is popular that day, use wordpress, make the page manually scrolling and put the ads near the scrollbar, profit. During the last election the webmasters, a couple of them were interviewed-it is quite a cottage industry in that city in Macedonia, were raking it in. They would have one site for Trump supporters and one for Clinton supporters. Both made money and I don’t remember if there was any profit difference between the sites. One comment I do remember, the webmaster tried to build a site for Bernie Sanders supporters but gave up after a week-those people would not believe ANYTHING without backup. It wasn’t worth building a fake news site for them. The rest of America-the cash just rolled in. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-will-believe-anything/781947/3 "2017-03-11T19:16:53Z")
> [@rbroome](#): > > They do very well with the sites… The rest of America-the cash just rolled in. According to the article: > [@](#): > > Mr McDaniel said his foray into fake news only made him $615 (£505), which he planned to donate to the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-will-believe-anything/781947/4 "2017-03-11T19:21:43Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > According to the article: Mr. McDaniel wasn’t in it for the money. According to the article the folks in Macedonia are. One guy found out about the business because one of his unemployed friends started driving a BMW around town. And this was during the election when apparently everyone was clicking on links. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-will-believe-anything/781947/5 "2017-03-11T19:23:34Z")
turns out it is well covered in the news. Here is an article in the BBC: > **[The city getting rich from fake news](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38168281)** > > Many of the fake news websites that sprang up during the US election campaign have been traced to a small city in Macedonia, where teenagers are pumping out sensationalist stories to earn cash from advertising. There are others in NBC, CBS, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-will-believe-anything/781947/6 "2017-03-11T20:00:26Z")
Those gangs are just jealous of competitors moving in on their turf.