As professional communicators, we can not stress the importance of applying a critical eye, and mind, to all news and opinions you read across digital and soc...ial channels.
This Washington Post article drives home the sophistication of people disseminating false news and social shares for their own agenda.
This piece from the Washington Post delivers a concise look at fake news, why it's being done, and the mult-faceted geopolitical and economic forces driving the proliferation of this phenomenon.
Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say
November 24
The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.
Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.