How Fake News Goes Viral

yea if they debunk liberal bunk as well. Liberal leaning newspapers 'demonizing' [Conservatives] Trump and his supporters seems pretty par-for-the-course to me.

deirdre's comment at the start of the thread stayed with me after all these months. The article, written by Colin Dickey for the New Republic, speaks to the nature of the audience in determining how fake news spreads. [my emphasis]

New Republic.png

Why has Trump’s election driven the left to embrace such transparent nonsense? Part of the reason lies in the public’s loss of faith in the mainstream media, which predicted an all-but-certain victory for Hillary Clinton. Part of the reason also lies in Trump’s willingness to lie in direct contradiction of the known facts, an extension of the right’s long-running assault on the very notion of objective, verifiable truth. But above all, conspiracy thinking has gained traction among liberals for a more prosaic reason: Liberals are human beings, and human beings get rattled when they’re afraid. If the left is succumbing to conspiracy theories, it’s because conspiracy theories are a way to manage anxiety.
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https://newrepublic.com/article/142...election-turns-democrats-conspiracy-theorists

The article also provides a few interesting examples of CT believers who inhabit the political left.

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https://newrepublic.com/article/142...election-turns-democrats-conspiracy-theorists
 
just my 2 cents: i feel like this topic is getting too political by times. personally, i do not believe that fake news and ct are typically attributed to certain political opinions. in recent times, topics like the us election, trump's presidency, brexit or the european refugee crisis may have been a fertile soil for a lot of (far right) nonsense which has gone viral. however, many ct themes are (still) universal, not exclusively claimed by (or easy to blame on) one side of the political spectrum. there are many "leftists" who believe 9/11 was an inside job for example. the people who refuse to vaccinate their offspring are – in my old country – more than often wealthy and well educated left-hearted democrats ... you won't believe what kind of fake news these people are posting on twitter/fb every day.

p.s. i donate a lot of work for a debunking group on facebook, my topics are vaccines ("are evil"), fluorid ("in toothpaste is dangerous") and aluminum ("causes breast cancer") and i couldn't tell that the origins of all the post i have to deal with came from a certain political group.
 
I agree with everthing you wrote, but here in America the term "Fake News" burst into existence (through mainstream media) as a political thing.

i agree. a lot of finger pointing is going on, though. from both sides.

more back on the topic: i really wonder, if some things the so-called "msm" published, could be considered as "fake news", too. for example, sometimes there are incorrect quotes (often wrong translations) or quotes out of context. the essence of such articles are broadly shared on the internet via social media, first with direct links, later with individual interpretations of the article's supposed message. it's in the nature of virality, that the original message will get distorted and over-exaggerated after a short time. taken this, perhaps the fake news aspect takes place with the spreading of a message, not by the original source. still, the question is, if the "mutation" of the message is calculated and intentionally.

example from yesterday: the imf has published the economic forecast for 2017/2018. one of the biggest german newspaper came up with the headline "imf prognosis downgraded: us economic growth will be low". if you read the iwf forecast, it says "us economic's growth is above the earlier forecasts. the estimation has been lowered by uncertain data regarding budgets and taxes to 2.1% for both forthcoming years, which is still well above the former growth rate of 1.6%". both the german headline and article didn't mention this. later that day you could read mocking posts on facebook claiming "us economic is totally f#&%ed up!", taking this article as a reference. the original article was quite misleading maybe, but it didn't really contain lies, yet the core message turned into wrong conclusions very quickly.
 
i really wonder, if some things the so-called "msm" published, could be considered as "fake news", too. for example, sometimes there are incorrect quotes (often wrong translations) or quotes out of context.
well that's what Donald Trump's whole schtick is. :) But personally, I think Fake News should only be used to refer to out and out made up stories, like "CIA guy admits to blowing up WTC7" or there was one tied to Hillary Clinton where the supposed whistle blower guy never actually existed.


I think when people start calling everything "fake news" vs. just plain old bunk, satire or 'political spin', then the term becomes meaningless.
 
I think Fake News should only be used to refer to out and out made up stories

Yes! there is a difference between "Fake News"- which is factually incorrect information- and biased or slanted coverage. Alas, "fake news" is now a meme to label and discredit anything someone doesn't agree with.
 
The article also provides a few interesting examples of CT believers who inhabit the political left.

Just a minor point - I have never heard of two of the three posted, but the third (Louise Mensch) in no sense inhabits the political left. She is a former MP for the Conservative Party who describes her political views as being close to those of George Osborne.

For the New Republic to describe her as a left-wing, as they indeed do in the article you linked to, bespokes either a low level of research into their topic, or a rather disturbing world-view in which 'left-wing' simply means 'opposed to Donald Trump'.



With parents who were active in the party, Mensch had joined the Conservatives when she was 14.[25] Subsequently, in 1996, she switched to the Labour Party, saying she believed Tony Blair to be "socially liberal but an economic Tory".[26] By 1997 she had returned to the Conservatives, helped her mother, Daphne, win a seat in East Sussex County Council from the Liberal Democrats,[25] and campaigned in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections.[27] In 2001, Mensch co-founded the Oxonian Society, later renamed the Hudson Union Society, with Joseph Pascal and Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan.[28][29]

Conservative party leader David Cameron placed Mensch on his "A-List" of Conservative candidates in 2006.[30] In October 2006 she was selected to stand in the constituency of Corby, which she won in the 2010 general election with a majority of 1,951, defeating Labour incumbent Phil Hope. In June 2010 she was elected by other Conservative MPs to serve on the Select Committee for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.[31]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch
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Just a minor point - I have never heard of two of the three posted, but the third (Louise Mensch) in no sense inhabits the political left. She is a former MP for the Conservative Party who describes her political views as being close to those of George Osborne.

For the New Republic to describe her as a left-wing, as they indeed do in the article you linked to, bespokes either a low level of research into their topic, or a rather disturbing world-view in which 'left-wing' simply means 'opposed to Donald Trump'.



With parents who were active in the party, Mensch had joined the Conservatives when she was 14.[25] Subsequently, in 1996, she switched to the Labour Party, saying she believed Tony Blair to be "socially liberal but an economic Tory".[26] By 1997 she had returned to the Conservatives, helped her mother, Daphne, win a seat in East Sussex County Council from the Liberal Democrats,[25] and campaigned in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections.[27] In 2001, Mensch co-founded the Oxonian Society, later renamed the Hudson Union Society, with Joseph Pascal and Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan.[28][29]

Conservative party leader David Cameron placed Mensch on his "A-List" of Conservative candidates in 2006.[30] In October 2006 she was selected to stand in the constituency of Corby, which she won in the 2010 general election with a majority of 1,951, defeating Labour incumbent Phil Hope. In June 2010 she was elected by other Conservative MPs to serve on the Select Committee for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.[31]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch
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Fair point.

Regardless of her past politics, the crux of her current conspiracies skew toward the left. The New Republic article notes:
Leading the charge has been Louise Mensch, a British former MP who seemingly overnight has become the main spokesperson of the paranoid resistance. Mensch has attracted more than 284,000 followers on Twitter, legitimate journalists among them, by posing ever more elaborate and ludicrous theories of the Russian conspiracy to elect Trump. She claims, for example, that Andrew Breitbart was assassinated by Russian agents to allow for the ascendancy of Steve Bannon, who took over the Breitbart web site after its founder’s death in 2012. Anthony Weiner’s sex scandal with a minor was, likewise, the work of Russian intelligence: Mensch claims that they invented a fake profile for a 15-year-old girl to entrap Weiner, planted files containing Hillary Clinton’s emails on his computer, and leaked the existence of those files to the FBI.
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https://newrepublic.com/article/142...election-turns-democrats-conspiracy-theorists

Her most "famous fan" is Ted Lieu, a California Democrat.
Capitol Weekly, California's major weekly periodical covering the state legislature, publishes an annual legislative scorecard to pin down the political or ideological leanings of every member of the legislature based on how they voted on an assortment of bills in the most recent legislative session. The 2009 scores were based on votes on 19 bills, but did not include how legislators voted on the Proposition 1A (2009). On the scorecard, "100" is a perfect liberal score and "0" is a perfect conservative score.[61][62]

On the 2009 Capitol Weekly legislative scorecard, Lieu ranked as an 89.[63]
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https://ballotpedia.org/Ted_Lieu

And he serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mensch.png

Source: https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/843143969261289472
 
Chomsky and Hermann have thoroughly debunked the myth of 'the Liberal Media' a long time ago.

Traditional definitions of "liberal" have become useless. So has any understanding of the "media" from more than a few years ago. The internet has changed things about how the "media" functions and reacts.
 
Guys, no need to go completely off-topic here. My statement was in response specifically to the OP, which linked only The New York Times (of this decade, not their coverage of Watergate, the Vietnam War or whether their readers didnt like them using the word "torture" with the US as perpetrators as per Chomsky and Hermann) and the Washington Post.

Although, I think the NYT did call out the WP a couple times for bunk/fake news this year (Propornot etc).

But then they did post that fake news bit about Palin. (and by fake news, I mean news they knew was fake when they wrote it because they were one of the ones who debunked it in the first place). and the WP called them out :) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...by-giffordss-shooting/?utm_term=.df7f22e05a1e
 
But personally, I think Fake News should only be used to refer to out and out made up stories, like "CIA guy admits to blowing up WTC7" or there was one tied to Hillary Clinton where the supposed whistle blower guy never actually existed.

I think when people start calling everything "fake news" vs. just plain old bunk, satire or 'political spin', then the term becomes meaningless.

I think we need to also distinguish "mistaken news, followed up by apology" from "fake news". Journalists make mistakes. While bad on many levels, mistakes are not "fake news", unless done on purpose of course.
 
Regardless of her past politics, the crux of her current conspiracies skew toward the left
maybe the inclusion of the word "past" is unfair. I always thought (and still do somewhat) that some of Trump's lackeys seem like the types to 'collude' with the Russians. I've been suspicious of Jared from the start.. I wont go into why.

So just saying, just because a conservative agrees with the libs on certain issues doesn't make them Libs per say. Personally I see Trump as a Libertarian more than a "conservative", but that may just be my bias trying to distance myself from him.
 
Real interesting conversation on this topic in one of today's segments of "On Point with Tom Ashbrook". His guests were Clint Watts, a Senior Fellow at the Center For Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University, and Sam Woolley, Director of Research of the Computational Propaganda project, at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford.

Summary of segment:

Fake News Bots Are Here
Russian Twitter bots and more haven't stopped pumping out propaganda and disinformation since the election. We'll look at the power and prevalence of social media bots.
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Here's a link to the podcast.

Maybe a transcript of the intro will entice you to listen...

"This weekend, President Trump re-Tweeted and thanked a supporter. But it turns out that Twitter account wasn't a real supporter, but an automated account, a "bot". Bots are all over social media, promoting particular agendas, pumping out false information. Bots, including Russian-backed bots, played a potent role in the 2016 election, and they haven't stopped."
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Edited to note that MikeG in post #74, quoted an article that quotes Clint Watts, who was one of the guests on today's podcast.
 
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Link to story in Washington Post "Trump backers’ alarming reliance on hoax and conspiracy theory websites, in 1 chart"


The extensive study, from Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, tracked down the most linked-to news sources on Twitter for supporters of both Trump and Hillary Clinton. The study collected 4.5 million tweets and searched for users who retweeted either Trump or Clinton. From there, it analyzed the URLs that these users shared on their feeds.

Fourth on the list of most-shared sources among Trump supporters on Twitter was Gateway Pundit, a site especially notorious for trafficking in hoaxes and falsehoods. No. 13 on the list was InfoWars, Alex Jones's conspiracy theory website, which is infamous for suggesting the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, among many other things.
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The study's authors put it this way:

While we observe highly partisan and clickbait news sites on both sides of the partisan divide, especially on Facebook, on the right these sites received amplification and legitimation through an attention backbone that tied the most extreme conspiracy sites like Truthfeed, Infowars, through the likes of Gateway Pundit and Conservative Treehouse, to bridging sites like the Daily Caller and Breitbart that legitimated and normalized the paranoid style that came to typify the right-wing ecosystem in the 2016 election. This attention backbone relied heavily on social media.

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I mean, even the coverage of fake news is “fake.” Paul Horner, the creator of many hoaxes on Facebook, claims he was the reason Trump won the 2016 presidential election. His contention is now carried by news outlets everywhere (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and so on). The story is its own kind of fake news because there’s absolutely no evidence to back up Horner’s claims that he had any effect on the outcome of the presidential election. He is only important because his story confirms the professional Left’s notions about Trump voters.
Paul Horner is apparently dead:
A writer who became notorious for peddling "fake news" during the 2016 US election campaign has died at 38.

Paul Horner was found dead in his bed in Laveen, Arizona, on 18 September, after a suspected drug overdose, officials said.

Horner, who published fraudulent articles on Facebook and websites he set up, claimed he was the reason Donald Trump was elected in November.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41422827
 
A recent story in the NYTimes: She Warned of ‘Peer-to-Peer Misinformation.’ Congress Listened. By SHEERA FRENKELNOV. 12, 2017


For years, Ms. DiResta had battled disinformation campaigns, cataloging data on how malicious actors spread fake narratives online.
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“When I put it all together and started mapping it out, I saw how big the scale of it was,” said Jonathan Albright, who met Ms. DiResta through Twitter. Mr. Albright published a widely read report that mapped, for the first time, connections between conservative sites putting out fake news. He did the research as a “second job” outside his position as research director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.
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She started tracking posts made by anti-vaccine accounts on Facebook and mapping the data. What she discovered, she said, was that Facebook’s platform was tailor-made for a small group of vocal people to amplify their voices, especially if their views veered toward the conspiratorial.

“It was this great case study in peer-to-peer misinformation,” Ms. DiResta said. Through one account she created to monitor anti-vaccine groups on Facebook, she quickly realized she was being pushed toward other anti-vaccine accounts, creating an echo chamber in which it appeared that viewpoints like “vaccines cause autism” were the majority.

Soon, her Facebook account began promoting content to her on a range of other conspiratorial ideas, ranging from people who claim the earth is flat to those who believe that “chem trails,” or trails left in the sky by planes, were spraying chemical agents on an unsuspecting public.

“So by Facebook suggesting all these accounts, they were essentially creating this vortex in which conspiratorial ideas can just breed and multiply,” Ms. DiResta said.
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“So by Facebook suggesting all these accounts, they were essentially creating this vortex in which conspiratorial ideas can just breed and multiply,” Ms. DiResta said.
I absolutely agree with that. Three or four years ago I set up a Facebook account to look at conspiracy stuff (I wanted to keep it separate from my main account). The more I looked at, the more extreme and crazy the recommendations that FB served up to me.
 
I absolutely agree with that. Three or four years ago I set up a Facebook account to look at conspiracy stuff (I wanted to keep it separate from my main account). The more I looked at, the more extreme and crazy the recommendations that FB served up to me.

It's like Facebook is actually guiding you down the rabbit hole. Not intentionally of course, but the recommendation algorithms essentially detect your trajectory, so once you start going in a certain direction it looks for recommendations that are in that direction.
 
It's like Facebook is actually guiding you down the rabbit hole.
They all do that. Google/Youtube, even Netflix. What's even weirder is they seem to be doing it now by IP addresses vs. specific computers.. so when I go visiting and use someone elses IP, I get to see all the shopping items/youtube views my host has been browsing recently. It's bizarre and annoying. So don't Christmas shop for your wife online! :)
 
They all do that. Google/Youtube, even Netflix. What's even weirder is they seem to be doing it now by IP addresses vs. specific computers.. so when I go visiting and use someone elses IP, I get to see all the shopping items/youtube views my host has been browsing recently. It's bizarre and annoying. So don't Christmas shop for your wife online! :)
Yes, but it's done by Google accounts too. If I search for something on my work computer I get ads for the same thing on my home computer and my mobile. It's kind of annoying as I have to do a lot of price checking etc at work so I get ads for things I have no personal interest in at all.
 
They all do that. Google/Youtube, even Netflix. What's even weirder is they seem to be doing it now by IP addresses vs. specific computers.. so when I go visiting and use someone elses IP, I get to see all the shopping items/youtube views my host has been browsing recently. It's bizarre and annoying. So don't Christmas shop for your wife online! :)
Has anyone also had this experience? I have purposely been watching for such activity. I have seen no bleeding of info among the members of the family. Each uses a different computer but share an IP address. Similarly there is no bleeding between work browsers.

But my browser at work behaves differently to my browser at home.
 
There is a recent News Feature in PNAS:

The genuine problem of fake news

Intentionally deceptive news has co-opted social media to go viral and influence millions. Science and technology can suggest why and how. But can they offer solutions?

M. Mitchell Waldrop, Science Writer
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http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/15/1719005114.full
Screen Shot 2017-11-21 at 11.59.26.png

The PDF is attached, in the case this is not an Open Access Article.
 

Attachments

  • PNAS-2017-Waldrop-1719005114.pdf
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People that have been concerned with creation and dissemination fake news and the efforts being made to foment distrust of the Mainstream Media, have been giving thought on how to combat those propaganda efforts. I found out about this 'game' created at Cambridge University "That Aims to "Vaccinate" People Against Fake News".

I found about it at ScienceAF: Cambridge University Releases Game That Aims to "Vaccinate" People Against Fake News

game.JPG



SCIENCE AF STAFF
21 FEB 2018
In the 21st century, misinformation has spread across the internet like a virus, making it harder for people to distinguish fact from fiction. Now, Cambridge University researchers have released an online game that aims to "vaccinate" people against fake news.

"A biological vaccine administers a small dose of the disease to build immunity. Similarly, inoculation theory suggests that exposure to a weak or demystified version of an argument makes it easier to refute when confronted with more persuasive claims," said Dr Sander van der Linden, Director of Cambridge University's Social Decision-Making Lab.

"If you know what it is like to walk in the shoes of someone who is actively trying to deceive you, it should increase your ability to spot and resist the techniques of deceit."

In previous studies, the same researchers showed that exposing people to the tactics underlying fake news propaganda can help serve as a "psychological vaccine" against misinformation.

The new game draws on this idea, and presents players with a mock interview for the job of "fake news tycoon".

"We aren't trying to drastically change behaviour, but instead trigger a simple thought process to help foster critical and informed news consumption," said one of the game's designers Jon Roozenbeek, a researcher from Cambridge's Department of Slavonic Studies.

The game walks players through a series of tactics that fake news propagandists use when spreading mistrust, fear and anger online.

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The about the game:

In this game you take on the role of fake news-monger. Drop all pretense of ethics and choose the path that builds your persona as an unscrupulous media magnate. But keep an eye on your ‘followers’ and ‘credibility’ meters. Your task is to get as many followers as you can while slowly building up fake credibility as a news site. But watch out: you lose if you tell obvious lies or disappoint your supporters!
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Link to the 'game'
 
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I really wonder if some things the so-called "MSM" published could be considered as "fake news" too. For example, sometimes there are incorrect quotes (often wrong translations) or quotes out of context.
Personally, I think Fake News should only be used to refer to out and out made up stories, like "CIA guy admits to blowing up WTC7". I think when people start calling everything "fake news" vs just plain old bunk, satire or 'political spin', then the term becomes meaningless.
I think we need to also distinguish "mistaken news, followed up by apology" from "fake news". Journalists make mistakes. While bad on many levels, mistakes are not "fake news", unless done on purpose of course.
There is also "selective news", which is maybe what @Birkenhead was suggesting - for example, "scientists say flu could kill between 100 and 10 million people" and headline becomes "Up to 10 million may die!"

And then there was plain old simple "fakery", such as The National Enquirer or The Sunday Sport pioneered, mostly for a laugh. But few thought it was "news".

So "Fake News" is "fakery" + "something masquerading as news". I guess the question is, is it done sincerely - and therefore "bunk" - or is it done consciously, for clicks and money and whatever else, and therefore this new-fangled invention: "Fake News"?
 
I think we need to also distinguish "mistaken news, followed up by apology" from "fake news". Journalists make mistakes. While bad on many levels, mistakes are not "fake news", unless done on purpose of course.

What if the mistakes are always biased in one direction, like if your grocery store sometimes overcharges you and apologizes when it gets caught, but it never undercharges you.
 
People that have been concerned with creation and dissemination fake news and the efforts being made to foment distrust of the Mainstream Media, have been giving thought on how to combat those propaganda efforts. I found out about this 'game' created at Cambridge University "That Aims to "Vaccinate" People Against Fake News".
8.159... is that good?
 
What if the mistakes are always biased in one direction, like if your grocery store sometimes overcharges you and apologizes when it gets caught, but it never undercharges you.
I think we need to also distinguish "mistaken news, followed up by apology" from "fake news". Journalists make mistakes. While bad on many levels, mistakes are not "fake news", unless done on purpose of course.
Then that would be true fake news, of course.
 


Particularly interesting around 10:00. Creatives make the fake content and pass it to the targeting team.
 
That C.A. stuff is gonna get big (bigger).
It's gonna change careers.... and it's a huge hit on the "marketing community"...... and it's gonna create more public doubt on media truth.
But this can also have it's ups......"don't believe everything you hear".
(or that you find on the screen in front of you)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
All I know is.....
In celebration and solidarity of National Bee Day (tomorrow), I will spend the next month, replacing my use of the word "be".... to "bee".

I hope you will bee with me.
 
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From ScienceAlert: Fake Facebook Accounts And Online Lies Multiply in Hours After Santa Fe School Shooting


In the first hours after the Texas school shooting that left at least 10 dead Friday, online hoaxers moved quickly to spread a viral lie, creating fake Facebook accounts with the suspected shooter's name and a doctored photo showing him wearing a "Hillary 2016" hat.


Several were swiftly flagged by users and deleted by the social network.

But others rose rapidly in their place: Chris Sampson, a disinformation analyst for a counterterrorism think tank, said he could see new fakes as they were being created and filled out with false information, including images linking the suspect to the anti-fascist group Antifa.

It has become a familiar pattern in the all-too-common aftermath of U.S. school shootings: A barrage of online misinformation, seemingly designed to cloud the truth or win political points.

But some social media watchers said they were still surprised at the speed with which the Santa Fe shooting descended into information warfare.

Sampson said he watched the clock after the suspect was first named by police to see how long it would take for a fake Facebook account to be created in the suspect's name: less than 20 minutes.

"It seemed this time like they were more ready for this," he said. "Like someone just couldn't wait to do it."

The fakes again reveal a core vulnerability for the world's most popular websites, whose popularity as social platforms is routinely weaponized by hoaxers exploiting the fog of breaking news.
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Christopher Bouzy, whose site Bot Sentinel tracks more than 12,000 automated Twitter accounts often used to spread misinformation, said four of the top 10 phrases tweeted by bot or troll accounts over the past 24 hours were related to the Santa Fe shooting, reaching the top 10 within less than three hours. "That is significant activity for our platform," he said.

The fake accounts included the name of Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the 17-year-old student and suspect who police say is now in custody, and included a photo taken from his Facebook that had been changed to include a hat from Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

It's unclear who created the false accounts. In the past, similar accounts have been created as part of disinformation campaigns, including by Russian-linked trolls or people just out to spread havoc.
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